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' v»tO30 


THE HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF 
GEORG EBERS 


UARDA 

A ROMANCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 
VOLUME ONE 


Translated from the German by 
Clara ^11 


POPULAR UNIFORM EDITION 


D, APPLETON AND COMPANY 
New York and London 

ms 



Copyright, i88i, 

By william S. GOTTSBERGEIL 


Aut/wrized Edition. 





<?-#*» vv 






Printed in the United States of America 


DEDICATION. 


Thou knowest well from what this book arose. 
When suffering seized and held me in its clasp 
Thy fostering hand released me from its grasp, 
And from amid the thorns there bloomed a rose. 
Air, dew, and sunshine were bestowed by Thee, 
And Thine it is ; without these lines from me. 


^.v V ♦v-y-l ' ■■*». ''t ''0 I 'ti ht.^ ' 

^ 'i , ■< '•^J‘^'5 ii* '• ■ ■ 'v .. 

[ ^ ' r fitlrt lTf j'A^ ^ y*-. ' ' r< 

• . .* ‘ ,iiA ' C yJ 

.V-' ' ' 



PREFACE. 


In the winter of 1873 I spent some weeks in one 
of the tombs of the Necropolis of Thebes in order to 
study the monuments of that solemn city of the dead; 
and during my long rides in the silent desert the germ 
was developed whence this book has since grown. The 
leisure of mind and body required to write it was 
given me through a long but not disabling illness. 

In the first instance I intended to elucidate this 
story — like my “Egyptian Princess” — with numerous 
and extensive notes placed at the end; but I was led to 
give up this plan from finding that it would lead me 
to the repetition of much that I had written in the 
notes to that earlier work. 

The numerous notes to. the former novel had a 
threefold purpose. In the first place they served to 
explain the text; in the second they were a guarantee 
of the care with which I had striven to depict the 
archaeological details in all their individuality from the 
records of the monuments and of Classic Authors; and 
thirdly I hoped to supply the reader who desired further 
knowledge of the period with some guide to his studies. 

In the present work I shall venture to content my- 
self with the simple statement that I have introduced 
nothing as proper to Egypt and to the period of 
Raineses that cannot be proved by some authority; the 
numerous monuments which have descended to us from 
the time of the Rameses, in fact enable the enquirer 
to understand much of the aspect and arrangement of 
Egyptian life, and to follow it step by step through the 
details of religious, public, and private life, even of 


11 


PREFACE. 


particular individuals. The same remark cannot be 
made in regard to their mental life, and here many an 
anachronism will slip in, many things will appear 
modern, and show the coloring of the Christian mode 
of thought. 

Every part of this book is intelligible without the 
aid of notes; but, for the reader who seeks for further 
enlightenment, I have added some foot-notes, and have 
not neglected to mention such works as afford more 
detailed information on the subjects mentioned in the 
narrative. 

The reader who wishes to follow the mind of the 
author in this work should not trouble himself with the 
notes as he reads, but merely at the beginning of each 
chapter read over the notes which belong to the fore- 
going one. Every glance at the foot-notes must neces- 
sarily disturb and injure the development of the tale 
as a work of art. The story stands here as it flowed 
from one fount, and was supplied with notes only after 
its completion. 

A narrative of Herodotus combined with the Epos 
of Pentaur, of which so many copies have been handed 
down to us, forms the foundation of the story. 

The treason of the Regent related by the Father 
of history is referable perhaps to the reign of the third 
and not of the second Rameses. But it is by no means 
certain that the Halicarnassian writer was in this case 
misinformed; and in this fiction no history will be in- 
culcated, only as a background shall I offer a sketch 
of the time of Sesostris, from a picturesque point of 
view, but with the nearest possible approach to truth. 
It is true that to this end nothing has been neglected 
that could be learnt from the monuments or the pa- 


PREFACE. 


Ill 


pyrr; still the book is only a romance, a poetic fiction, 
in which I wish all the facts derived from history and 
all the costume drawn from the monuments to be 
regarded as incidental, and the emotions of the actors 
in the story as what 1 attach importance to. 

But I must be allowed to make one observation. 

From studying the conventional mode of execution 
of ancient Egyptian art — which was strictly subject to 
the hieratic laws of type and proportion — we have ac- 
customed ourselves to imagine the inhabitants of the 
Nile-valley in the time of the Pharaohs as tall and 
haggard men with little distinction of individual phys- 
iognomy, and recently a great painter has sought to 
represent them under this aspect in a modern picture. 

This is an error; the Egyptians, in spite of their 
aversion to foreigners and their strong attachment to 
their native soil, were one of the most intellectual and 
active people of antkjuity; and he who would represent 
them as they lived, and to that end copies the forms 
which remain painted on the walls of the temples and 
sepulchres, is the accomplice of those priestly corrupters 
of art who compelled the painters and sculptors of the 
Pharaonic era to abandon truth to nature in favor of 
their sacred laws of proportion. 

He who desires to paint the ancient Egyptians with 
truth and fidelity, must regard it in some sort as an act 
of enfranchisement; that is to say, he must release the 
conventional forms from those fetters which were pecu- 
liar to their art and altogether foreign to their real life. 
Indeed, works of sculpture remain to us of the time of 
the first pyramid, which represent ifien with the truth 
of nature, unfettered by the sacred canon. We can 
recall the so-called “Village Judge” of Bulaq, the “ Scribe” 


IV 


PREFACE. 


now in Paris, and a few figures » in bronze in different 
museums, as well as the noble and characteristic busts 
of all epochs, which amply prove how great the variety 
of individual physiognomy, and, with that, of individual 
character was among the Egyptians. Alma Tadema in 
London and Gustav Richter in Berlin have, as painters, 
treated Egyptian subjects in a manner which the poet 
recognizes and accepts with delight. 

Many earlier witnesses than the late writer Flavius 
Vopiscus might' be referred to who show us the Egyp- 
tians as an industrious and peaceful people, passionately 
devoted it is true to all that pertains to the other 
world, but also enjoying the gifts of life to the fullest 
extent, nay sometimes to excess. 

Real men, such as we see around us in actual life, 
not silhouettes constructed to the old priestly scale such 
as the monuments show us — real living men dwelt by 
the old Nile-stream; and the poet who would represent 
them must courageously seize on types out of the daily 
life of modem men that surround him, without fear of 
deviating too far from reality, and, placing them in their 
own long past time, color them only and clothe them 
to correspond with it. 

I have discussed the authorities for the conception 
of love which I have ascribed to the ancients in the 
preface to the second edition of “An Egyptian Princess.” 

With these lines I send Uarda into the world; and 
in them I add my thanks to those dear friends in whose 
beautiful home, embowered in green, bird-haunted woods, 
I have so often refreshed my spirit and recovered my 
strength, where I now write the last words^ of this book. 

Rheinbollerhiitte, September 22, 1876. 


Georg Ebers. 


PREFACE 

TO THE FIFTH GERMAN EDITION. 


The earlier editions of “Uarda” were published in 
such rapid succession, that no extensive changes in the 
stereotyped text could be made; but from the first issue, 
I have not ceased to correct it, and can now present to 
the public this new fifth edition as a “ revised” one. 

Having felt a constantly increasing affection for 
“Uarda” during the time I was writing, the friendly and 
comprehensive attention bestowed upon it by our 
greatest critics and the favorable reception it met with 
in the various classes of society, afforded me the utmost 
pleasure. 

I owe the most sincere gratitude to the honored 
gentlemen, who called my attention to certain errors, 
and among them will name particularly Professor Paul 
Ascherson of Berlin, and Dr. C. Rohrbach of Gotha. 
Both will find their remarks regarding mistakes in the 
geographical location of plants, heeded in this new 
edition. 

The notes, after mature deliberation, have been 
placed at the foot of the pages instead of at the end of 
the book. 

So many criticisms concerning the title “Uarda” 
have recently reached my ears, that, rather by way of 
explanation than apology, I will here repeat what I said 
in the preface to the third edition. 

This title has its own history, and the more difficult 
it would be for me to defend it, the more ready I am to 
allow an advocate to speak for me, an advocate, who 


VI 


PREFACE. 


bears a name no less distinguished than that of G. E. 
Lessing, who says: 

“Nanine? (by Voltaire, 1749). What sort of title 
is that? What thoughts does it awake? Neither more 
nor less than a title should arouse. A title must not 
be a bill of fare. The less it betrays of the contents, 
the better it is. Author and spectator are both satis- 
fied, and the ancients rarely gave their comedies any- 
thing but insignificant names.” 

This may be the case with “Uarda,” whose charac- 
ter is less prominent than some others, it is true, but 
whose sorrows direct the destinies of my other heroes 
and heroines. 

Why should I conceal the fact? The character of 
“Uarda” and the present story have grown out of the 
memory of a Fellah girl, half child, half maiden, whom 
I saw suffer and die in a hut at Abd el Qurnah in the 
Necropolis of Thebes. 

I still persist in the conviction I have so frequently 
expressed, tlie conviction that the fundamental traits of 
the life of the soul have undergone very trivial modifi- 
cations among civilized nations in all times and ages, 
but will endeavor to explain the contrary opinion, held 
by my opponents, by calling attention to the circum- 
stance, that the expression of these emotions show con- 
siderable variations among different peoples, and at dif- 
ferent epochs. I believe that Juvenal, one of the 
ancient writers who best understood human nature, was 
right in saying: 

“ Nil erit ulterius, quod nostris moribus addat 
Posteritas: eadem cupient facientque minores.” 

Leipsic, October 15th, 1877. 


Georg Ebers. 


U A R D A . 


CHAPTER I. 

By the walls of Thebes — the old city of a hundred 
gates — the Nile spreads to a broad river; the heights, 
which follow the stream on both sides, here take a more 
decided outline; solitary, almost cone-shaped peaks 
stand out sharply from the level background of the 
many-colored limestone hills, on which no palm-tree 
flourishes and in which no humble desert-plant can 
strike root. Rocky crevasses and gorges cut more 
or less deeply into the mountain range, and up to its 
ridge extends the desert, destructive of all life, with 
sand and stones, with rocky cliffs and reef-like, desert 
hills. 

Behind the eastern range the desert spreads to the 
Red Sea ; behind the western it stretches without limit, 
into infinity. In the belief of the Egyptians beyond it 
lay the region of the dead. 

Between these two ranges of hills, which serve as 
walls or ramparts to keep back the desert- iand, flows 
the fresh and bounteous Nile, bestowing blessing and 
abundance; at once the father and the cradle of millions 
of beings. On each shore spreads the wide plain of 
black and fruitful soil, and in the depths many-shaped 
creatures, in coats of mail or scales, swarm and find 
subsistence. 


6 


UARDA. 


The lotos floats on the mirror of the waters, and 
among the papyrus reeds by the shore water-fowl in- 
numerable build their nests. Between the river and 
the mountain-range lie fields, which after the seed-time 
are of a shining blue-green, and towards the time of 
harvest glow like gold. Near the brooks and water- 
wheels here and there stands a shady sycamore; and 
date-palms, carefully tended, group themselves in groves. 
The fruitful plain, watered and manured every year by 
the inundation, lies at the foot of the sandy desert-hills 
behind it, and stands out like a garden flower-bed from 
the gravel-path. 

In the fourteenth century before Christ — for to so 
remote a date we must direct the thoughts of the 
reader — impassable limits had been set by the hand of 
man, in many places in Thebes, to the inroads of the 
water; high dykes of stone and embankments protected 
the streets and squares, the temples and the palaces, 
from the overflow. 

Canals that could be tightly closed up led from the 
dykes to the land within, and smaller branch-cuttings to 
the gardens of Thebes. 

On the right, the eastern bank of the Nile, rose the 
buildings of the far-famed residence of the Pharaohs. 
Close by the river stood the immense and gaudy 
Temples of the city of Amon ; behind these and at a 
short distance from the Eastern hills — indeed at their 
very foot and partly even on the soil of the desert — were 
the palaces of the King and nobles, and the shady 
streets in which the high narrow houses of the citizens 
stood in close rows. 

Life was gay and busy in the streets of the 
capital of the Pharaohs. 


UARDA. 


7 


The western shore of the Nile showed a quite dif- 
ferent scene. Here too there was no lack of stately 
buildings or thronging men; but while on the farther 
side of the river there was a compact mass of houses, 
and the citizens went cheerfully and openly about 
their day’s work, on this side there were solitary 
splendid structures, round which little houses and huts 
seemed to cling as children cling to the protection 
of a mother. And these buildings lay in detached 
groups. 

Any one climbing the hill and looking down would 
form the notion that there lay below him a number of 
neighboring villages, each with its lordly manor house. 
Looking from the plain up to the precipice of the 
western hills, hundreds of closed portals could be seen, 
some solitary, others closely ranged in rows; a great 
number of them towards the foot of the slope, yet 
more half-way up, and a few at a considerable height. 

And even more dissimilar were the slow-moving, 
solemn groups in the roadways on this side, and 
the cheerful, confused throng yonder. There, on the 
eastern shore, all were in eager pursuit of labor or 
recreation, stirred by pleasure or by grief, active in deed 
and speech; here, in the west, little was spoken, a spell 
seemed to check the footstep of the wanderer, a pale 
hand to sadden the bright glance of every eye, and to 
banish the smile from every lip. 

And yet many a gaily-dressed bark stopped at the 
shore, there was no lack of minstrel bands, grand 
processions passed on to the western heights; but the 
Nile boats bore the dead, the songs sung here were 
songs of lamentation, and the processions consisted of 
mourners following the sarcophagus. 


8 


UARDA. 


We ^re standing on the soil of the City of the 
Dead of Thebes. 

Nevertheless even here nothing is wanting for return 
and revival, for to the Egyptian his dead died not. 
He closed his eyes, he bore him to the Necropolis, to 
the house of the embalmer, or Kolchytes, and then to 
the grave ; but he knew that the souls of the departed 
lived on ; that the justified absorbed into Osiris floated 
over the Heavens in the vessel of the Sun ; that they 
appeared on earth in the form they choose to take upon 
them, and that they might exert influence on the cur- 
rent of the lives of the survivors. So he took care to 
give a worthy interment to his dead, above all to have 
the body embalmed so as to endure long : and had 
fixed times to bring fresh offerings for the dead of 
flesh and fowl, with drink-offerings and sweet-smelling 
essences, and vegetables and flowers. 

Neither at the obsequies nor at the offerings 
might the ministers of the gods be absent, and the 
silent City of the Dead was regarded as a favored 
sanctuary in which to establish schools and dwellings 
for the learned. 

So it came to pass that in the temples and on 
the site of the Necropolis, large communities of priests 
dwelt together, and close to the extensive embalming 
houses lived numerous Kolchytes, who handed down 
the secrets of their art from father to son. 

Besides these there were other manufactories and 
shops. In the former, sarcophagi of stone and of wood, 
linen bands for enveloping mummies, and amulets for 
decorating them, were made ; in the latter, merchants 
kept spices and essences, flowers, fruits, vegetables and 
pastry for sale. Calves, gazelles, goats, geese and 


UARDA. 


9 


other fowl, were fed on enclosed meadow-plats, and 
the mourners betook themselves thither to select what 
they needed from among the beasts pronounced by the 
priests to be clean for sacrifice, and to have them 
sealed with the sacred seal. Many bought only part 
of a victim at the shambles — the poor could not even 
do this. They bought only colored cakes in the 
shape of beasts, which symbolically took the place of 
the calves and geese which their means were unable 
to procure. In the handsomest shops sat servants of 
the priests, who received forms written on rolls of 
papyrus which were filled up in the writing room of 
the temple with those sacred verses which the departed ^ 
spirit must know and repeat to ward off the evil genius 
of the deep, to open the gate of the under world, and 
to be held righteous before Osiris and the forty-two 
assessors of the subterranean court of justice. 

What took place within the temples was concealed 
from view, for each was surrounded by a high enclosing 
wall with lofty, carefully-closed portals, which were 
only opened when a chorus of priests came out to 
sing a pious hymn, in the morning to Horus the rising 
god, and in the evening to Turn the descending god.* 

As soon as the evening hymn of the priests was 
heard, the Necropolis was deserted, for the mourners 
and those who were visiting the graves were required 
by this time to return to their boats and to quit the 
City of the Dead. Crowds of men who had marched 
in the processions of the west bank hastened in disorder 


* The course of the Sun was compared to that of the life of Man. He 
rose as the child Horus, grew by midday to the hero Ra, who conquered 
the Uraeus snake for his diadem, and by evening was an old Man, Turn. Light 
had been born of darkness, hence Turn was regarded as older than Horu.s and 
the other gods of light. 

2 


16 


UARDA. 


to the shore, driven on by the body of watchmen who 
took it in turns to do this duty and to protect the 
graves against robbers. The merchants closed their 
booths, the embalmers and workmen ended their day’s 
work and retired to their houses, the priests returned 
to the temples, and the inns were filled with guests, 
who had come hither on long pilgrimages from a 
distance, and who preferred passing the night in the 
vicinity of the dead whom they had come to visit, 
to going across to the bustling noisy city on the 
farther shore. 

The voices of the singers and of the wailing women 
were hushed, even the song of the sailors on the num- 
berless ferry boats from the western shore to Thebes 
died away, its faint echo was now and then borne 
across on the evening air, and at last all was still. 

A cloudless sky spread over the silent City of the 
Dead, now and then darkened for an instant by the 
swiftly passing shade of a bat returning to its home in 
a cave or cleft of the rock after flying the whole even- 
ing near the Nile to catch flies, to drink, and so pre- 
pare itself for the next day’s sleep. From time to 
time black forms with long shadows glided over the 
still illuminated plain — the Jackals, who at this hour 
frequented the shore to slake their thirst, and often 
fearlessly showed themselves in troops in the vicinity 
of the pens of geese and goats. 

It was forbidden to hunt these robbers, as they 
were accounted sacred to the god Anubis,* the tutelary 

* The jackal-headed god Anubis was the son of Osiris and Nephthys, and 
the jackal was sacred to him. In the earliest ages even he is prominent in the 
nether world. He conducts the mummifying process, preserves the corpse, 
guards the Necropolis, and, as Hermes Psychopompos (Hermanubis), opens 
the way for the souls. According to Plutarch “He is the watch of the gods 
as the dog is the watch of men.” 


UARDA. 


11 


of sepulchres; and indeed they did little mischief, for 
they found abundant food in the tombs. 

The remnants of the meat offerings from the altars 
were consumed by them ; to the perfect satisfaction of the 
devotees, who, when they found that by the following day 
the meat had disappeared, believed that it had been ac- 
cepted and taken away by the spirits of the underworld. 

They also did the duty of trusty watchers, for they 
were a dangerous foe for any intruder who, under the 
shadow of the night, might attempt to violate a grave. 

Thus — on that summer evening of the year 1352 
B. c., when we invite the reader to accompany us to 
the Necropolis of Thebes — after the priests’ hymn had 
died away, all was still in the City of the Dead. 

The soldiers on guard were already returning from 
their first round when suddenly, on the north side of 
the Necropolis, a dog barked loudly; soon a second 
took up the cry, a third, a fourth. The captain of the 
watch called to his men to halt, and, as the cry of the 
dogs spread and grew louder every minute, commanded 
them to march towards the north. 

The little troop had reached the high dyke which 
divided the west bank of the Nile from a branch canal, 
and looked from thence over the plain as far as the 
river and to the north of the Necropolis. Once more 
the word to “ halt ” was given, and as the guard per- 
ceived the glare of torches in the direction where the 
dogs were barking loudest, they hurried forward and 
came up with the author of the disturbance near the 
Pylon* of the temple erected by Seti I., the deceased 
father of the reigning King Rameses II. 

* The two pyramidal towers joined by a gateway which formed the 
entrance to an Egyptian temple were called the Pylon. 


12 


UARDA. 


The moon was up, and her paje light flooded the 
stately structure, while the walls glowed with the 
ruddy smoky light of the torches which flared in the 
hands of black attendants. 

A man of sturdy build, in sumptuous dress, was 
knocking at the brass-covered temple door with the 
metal handle of a whip, so violently that the blows 
rang far and loud through the night. Near him stood 
a litter, and a chariot, to which were harnessed two 
fine horses. In the litter sat a young woman, and in 
the carriage, next to the driver, was the tall figure of 
a lady. Several men of the upper classes and many 
servants stood around the litter and the chariot. Few 
words were exchanged; the whole attention of the 
strangely lighted groups seemed concentrated on the 
temple-gate. The darkness concealed the features of 
individuals, but the mingled light of the moon and the 
torches was enough to reveal to the gate-keeper, who 
looked down on the party from a tower of the Pylon, 
that it was composed of persons of the highest rank ; 
nay, perhaps of the royal family. 

He called aloud to the one who knocked, and 
asked him what was his will. 

He looked up, and in a voice so rough and im- 
perious, that the lady in the litter shrank in horror as 
its tones suddenly violated the place of the dead, he 
cried out — “ How long are we to wait here for you — 
you dirty hound ? Come down and open the door 
and then ask questions. If the torch-light is not 
bright enough to show you who is waiting, I will score 
our name on your shoulders with my whip, and teach 
you how to receive princely visitors.” 

While the jjorter muttered an unintelligible answer 


fAKDA. 


13 


and came down the steps within to open the door, 
the lady in the chariot turned to her impatient com- 
panion and said in a pleasant but yet decided voice, 
“ You forget, Paaker, that you are back again in Egypt, 
and that here you have to deal not with the wild 
Schasu,* but with friendly priests of whom we have to 
solicit a favor. We have always had to lament your 
roughness, which seems to me very ill-suited to the 
unusual circumstances under which we approach this 
sanctuary.” 

Although these words were spoken in a tone rather 
of regret than of blame, they wounded the sensibilities 
of the person addressed ; his wide nostrils began to 
twitch ominously, he clenched his right hand over the 
handle of his whip, and, while he seemed to be bowing 
humbly, he struck such a heavy blow on the bare leg 
of a slave who was standing near to him, an old 
Ethiopian, that he shuddered as if from sudden cold, 
though — knowing his lord only too well — he let no 
cry of pain escape him. Meanwhile the gate-keeper 
had opened the door, and Avith him a tall young priest 
stepped out into the open air to ask the will of the 
intruders. 

Paaker would have seized the opportunity of speak- 
ing, but the lady in the chariot interposed and said : 

“ I am Bent-Anat, the daughter of the King, and 
this lady in the litter is Nefert, the wife of the noble 
Mena, the charioteer of my father. We Avere going in 
company with these gentlemen to the north-west valley 
of the Necropolis to see the new Avorks there. You 
knoAv the narroAV pass in tlie rocks Avhich leads up the 
gorge. On the Avay home I myself held the reins and 

* A Semitig rage of robbers in the east of Egj-pt. 


14 


UARDA. 


I had the misfortune to drive over a girl who sat by 
the road with a basket full of flowers, and to hurt her 
— to hurt her very badly I am afraid. The wife of 
Mena with her own hands bound up the child, and 
then we carried her to her father’s house — he is a para- 
schites* — Pinem is his name. I know not whether he 
is known to you.” 

“ Thou hast been into his house. Princess ?” 

“ Indeed, I was obliged, holy father,” she replied, 
‘‘ I know of course that I have defiled myself by crossing 
the threshold of these people, but — ” 

“ But,” cried the wife of Mena, raising herself in her 
litter, “ Bent-Anat can in a day be purified by thee or 
by her house-priest, while she can hardly — or perhaps 
never — restore the child whole and sound again to the 
unhappy fatlier.” 

“ Still, the den of a paraschites is above every thing 
unclean,” said the chamberlain Penbesa, master of the 
ceremonies to the princess, interrupting the wife of Mena, 
“ and I did not conceal my opinion when Bent-Anat 
announced her intention of visiting the accursed hole in 
person. I suggested,” he continued, turning to the priest, 
“ that she should let the girl be taken home, and send 
a royal present to the father.” 

“ And the princess ?” asked the priest. 

She acted, as she always does, on her own judg- 
ment,” replied the master of the ceremonies. 

“ And that always hits on the right course,” cried 
the wife of Mena. 

“Would to God it were so!” said the princess in a 
subdued voice. Then she continued, addressing the 


* One who opened the bodies of the dead to prepare them for being em- 
balmed. 


UARDA. 


15 


priest, “Thou knovvest the will of the Gods and the 
hearts of men, holy father, and I myself know that I 
give alms willingly and help the poor even when there 
is none to plead for them but their poverty. But after 
what has occurred here, and to these unhappy people, it 
is I who come as a suppliant.” 

“Thou?” said the chamberlain. 

“ I,” answered the princess with decision. The priest 
who up to this moment had remained a silent witness 
of the scene raised his right hand as in blessing and 
spoke. 

• “Thou hast done well. The Hathors fashioned 
thy heart* and the Lady of Truth guides it. Thou 
hast broken ^ in on our night-prayers to request us to 
send a doctor to the injured girl?” 

“Thou hast said.” 

“I will ask the high-priest to send the best leech 
for outward wounds immediately to the child. But 
where is the house of the paraschites Pinem ? I do not 
know’ it” 

“Northwards from the terrace of Hatasu,** close to 
— ; but I will charge one of my attendants to conduct 
the leech. Besides, I want to know early in the morn- 
ing how the child is doing. — Paaker.” 

The rough visitor, whom we already know, thus 
called upon, bowed to the earth, his arms hanging by 
his sides, and asked: 

* Hathor was Isis under a substantial form. She is the goddess of the 
pure, light heaven, and bears the Sun-disk between cow-homs on a cow’s head 
or on a human head with cow’s ears. She was named the Fair, and all the pure 
joys of life are in her gift. Later she was regarded as a Muse who beautifies 
life with enjoyment, love, song, and the dance. She appears as a good fairy by 
the cradle of children and decides their lot in life. She bears many names; 
and several, generally seven, Hathors were represented, who personified the 
attributes and influence of the goddess. 

** A great queen of ^e iS^h dynasty and guardian of (wo Pharaohs^. 


i6 


UARbA. 


<‘What dost thou command?” 

“ I appoint you guide to the physician,” said the 
princess. “It will be easy to the king’s pioneer* to 
find the little half-hidden house again — besides, you 
share my guilt, for,” she added, turning to the priest, “ I 
confess that the misfortune happened because I would 
try with my horses to overtake Paaker’s Syrian racers, 
which he declared to be swifter than the Egyptian 
horses. It was a mad race.” 

“And Amon be praised that it ended as it did,” 
exclaimed the master of the ceremonies. “Paaker’s 
chariot lies dashed in pieces in the valley, and his best 
horse is badly hurt.” 

“ He will see to him when he has taken the phy- 
sician to the house of the paraschites,” said the prin- 
cess. “ Dost thou know, Penbesa — thou anxious guar- 
dian of a thoughtless girl — that to-day for the first time 
I am glad that my father is at the war in distant Sati- 
land?”** 

“He would not have welcomed us kindly!” said the 
master of the ceremonies, laughing. 

“ But the leech, the leech !” cried Bent-Anat. 
“Paaker, it is settled then. You will conduct him, and 
bring us to-morrow morning news of the wounded 
girl.” 

Paaker bowed; the princess bowed her head; the 
priest and his companions, who meanwhile had come 
out of the temple and joined him, raised their hands in 
blessing, and the belated procession moved towards the 
Nile. 

* I’he title here rendered pioneer was that of an officer whose duties were 
those at once of a scout and of a Quarter-Master General. In unknown and 
comparatively savage countries it was an onerous post. Tran$iator, 

*” A§ia, 


UARDA. 


17 


Paaker remained alone with his two slaves ; the 
commission with which the princess had charged him 
greatly displeased him. So long as the moonlight en- 
abled him to distinguish the litter of Mena’s wife, he 
gazed after it ; then he endeavored to recollect the 
position of the hut of the paraschites. The captain of 
the watch still stood with the guard at the gate of the 
temple. 

“ Do you know the dwelling ofPinem the paraschites?” 
asked Paaker. 

“ What do you want with him ?” 

“ That is no concern of yours,” retorted Paaker. 

“Lout!” exclaimed the captain, “left face and for- 
wards, my men.” 

“Halt!” cried Paaker in a rage. “ I am the king’s 
chief pioneer.” 

“Then you will all the more easily find the way 
back by which you came. March.” 

The words were followed by a peal of many-voiced 
laughter : the re-echoing insult so confounded Paaker 
that he dropped his whip on the ground. The slave, 
whom a short time since he had struck with it, humbly 
picked it up and then followed his lord into the fore- 
court of the temple. Both attributed the titter, which 
they still could hear without being able to detect its 
origin, to wandering spirits. But the mocking tones 
had been heard too by the old gate-keeper, and the 
laughers were better known to him than to the king’s 
pioneer; he strode with heavy steps to the door of 
the temple through the black shadow of the pylon, and 
striking blindly before h'm called out — 


tJAknA. 


iS 


“Ah! you good-for-nothing brood of Seth."* You 
gallows-birds and brood of hell — I am coming.” 

The giggling ceased ; a few youthful figures appeared 
in the moonlight, the old man pursued them panting, 
and, after a short chase, a troop of youths fled back 
through the temple gate. 

The door-keeper had succeeded in catching one 
miscreant, a boy of thirteen, and held him so tight by 
the ear that his pretty head seemed to have grown in 
a horizontal direction from his shoulders. 

“ I will take you before the school-master, you plague- 
of-locusts, you swarm of bats!” cried the old man out of 
breath. But the dozen of school-boys, who had availed 
themselves of the opportunity to break out of bounds, 
gathered coaxing round him, with words of repentance, 
though every eye sparkled with delight at the fun they 
had had, and of which no one could deprive them ; and 
when the biggest of them took the old man’s chin, and 
promised to give him the wine which his mother was 
to send him next day for the week’s use, the porter let 
go his prisoner — who tried to rub the pain out of his 
burning ear — and cried out in harsher tones than be- 
fore : 

“ You will pay me, will you, to let you off ! Do you 
think I will let your tricks pass? You little know this 
old man. I will complain to the Gods, not to the 
school -master; and as for your wine, youngster, I will 
offer it as a libation, that heaven may forgive you.” 

* The Typhon of the Greeks. The enemy of Osiris, of truth, good and 
purity. Discord and strife in nature. Horus who fights against him for his 
father Osiris, can throw him and stun him, but never annihilate him. 


UARDA. 


^9 


CHAPTER II. 

The temple where, in the fore-court, Paaker was 
waiting, and where the priest had disappeared to call 
the leech, was called the “ House of Seti and was 
one of the largest in the City of the Dead. Only that 
magnificent building of the time of the deposed royal 
race of the reigning king’s grandfather — that temple 
which had been founded by Thotmes III., and whose 
gate- way Amenophis III. had adorned with immense 
colossal statues** — exceeded it in the extent of its plan; 
in every other respect it held the pre-eminence among 
the sanctuaries of the Necropolis. Rameses I. had 
founded it shortly after he succeeded in seizing the 
Egyptian throne; and his yet greater son Seti carried 
on the erection, in which the service of the dead for the 
Manes of the members of the new royal family was 
conducted, and the high festivals held in honor of the 
Gods of the under-world. Great sums had been ex- 
pended for its establishment, for the maintenance of 
the priesthood of its sanctuary, and the support of the 
institutions connected with it. These were intended to 
be equal to the great original foundations of priestly 
learning at Heliopolis and Memphis; they were regu- 
lated on the same pattern, and with the object of rais- 
ing the new royal residence of Upper Egypt, namely 
Thebes, above the capitals of Lower Egypt in regard 
to philosophical distinction. 

One of the most important of these foundations 

* It is still standing, and known as the temple of Qurnah. 

** The well-known colossal statues, of which that which stands to the north 
is the famous musical statue, or Pillar of Memnon. 


20 


UARDA. 


was a very celebrated schooL of learning.* First there 
was the high-school, in which priests, physicians, judges, 
mathematicians, astronomers, grammarians, and other 
learned men, not only had the benefit of instruction, 
but, subsequently, when they had won admission to the 
highest ranks of learning, and attained the dignity of 
“ Scribes,” were maintained at the cost of the king, and 
enabled to pursue their philosophical speculations and 
researches, in freedom from all care, and in the society of 
fellow- workers of equal birth and identical interests. 

An extensive library, in which thousands of papyrus- 
rolls were preserved, and to which a manufactory of 
papyrus was attached, was at the disposal of the learned ; 
and some of them were intrusted with the education of 
the younger disciples, who had been prepared in the ele- 
mentaiy school, which was also dependent on the House 
— or university — of Seti. The lower school was open 
to every son of a free citizen, and was often frequented 
by several hundred boys, who also found night-quarters 
there. The parents were of course required either to 
pay for their maintenance, or to send due supplies of 
provisions for the keep of their children at school. 

In a separate building lived the temple-boarders, 
a few sons of the noblest families, who were brought up 
by the priests at a great expense to their parents. 

Seti I., the founder of this establishment, had had 
his own sons, not excepting Rameses, his successor, 
educated here. 

The elementary schools were strictly ruled, and the 
rod played so large a part in them, that a pedagogue 
could record this saying: “The scholar’s ears are at his 
back: when he is flogged then he hears.” 

* Every detail of this description of an Egyptian school is derived from 
sources dating from the reign of Rameses II. and his successor, Merneptah, 


UARDA. 


21 


Those youths who wished to pass up from the 
lower to the high-school had to undergo an examination. 
The student, when he had passed it, could choose a 
master from among the learned of the higher grades, 
who undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to 
whom he remained attached all his life through, as a 
client to his patron. He could obtain the degree of 
Scribe” and qualify for public office by a second ex- 
amination. 

Near to these schools of learning there stood also 
a school of art, in which instruction was given to stu- 
dents who desired to devote themselves to architecture, 
sculpture, or painting; in these also the learner might 
choose his master. 

Every teacher in these institutions belonged to the 
priesthood of the House of Seti. It consisted of more 
than eight hundred members, divided into five classes, 
and conducted by three so-called Prophets. 

The first prophet was the high-priest of the House 
of Seti, and at the same time the superior of all the 
thousands of upper and under servants of the divinities 
which belonged to the City of the Dead of Thebes. 

The temple of Seti proper was a massive structure 
of limestone. A row of Sphinxes led from the Nile 
to the surrounding wall, and to the first vast pro-pylon, 
which formed the entrance to a broad fore-court, en- 
closed on the two sides by colonnades, and beyond 
which stood a second gate-way. When he had passed 
through this door, which stood between two towers, in 
shape like truncated pyramids, the stranger came to a 
second court resembling the first, closed at the farther 
end by a noble row of pillars, which formed part of the 
central temple itself. 


22 


UARDA. 


The innermost and last was dimly lighted by a few 
lamps. 

Behind the temple of Seti stood large square struc- 
tures of brick of the Nile mud, which however had a 
handsome and decorative effect, as the humble material 
of which they were constructed was plastered with lime, 
and that again was painted with colored pictures and 
hieroglyphic inscriptions. 

The internal arrangement of all these houses was 
the same. In the midst was an open court, on to which 
opened the doors of the rooms of the priests and philos- 
ophers. On each side of the court was a shady, covered 
colonnade of wood, and in the midst a tank with 
ornamental plants. In the upper story were the apart- 
ments for the scholars, and instruction was usually 
given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats. 

The most imposing was the house of the chief pro- 
phets; it was distinguished by its waving standards 
and stood about a hundred paces behind the temple 
of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear lake — the 
sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it 
while fulfilling their office, while the splendid houses 
which they lived in with their wives and children, lay 
on the other side of the river, in Thebes proper. 

The untimely visit to the temple could not remain 
unobserved by the colony of sages. Just as ants 
when a hand breaks in on their dwelling, hurry rest- 
lessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had 
agitated, not the school-boys only, but the teachers 
and the priests. They collected in groups near the 
outer walls, asking questions and hazarding guesses. 
A messenger from the king had arrived — the princess 
Bent-Anat had been attacked by the Kolchytes — and 


UARDA. 


23 


a wag among the school-boys who had got out, declared 
that Paaker, the king’s pioneer, had been brought into 
the temple by force to be made to learn to write 
better. As the subject of the joke had formerly been 
a pupil of the House of Seti, and many delectable 
stories of his errors in penmanship still survived in 
the memory of the later generation of scholars, this 
information was received with joyful applause ; and it 
seemed to have a glimmer of probability, in spite of 
the apparent contradiction that Paaker filled one of 
the highest offices near the king, when a grave young 
priest declared that he had seen the pioneer in the 
forecourt of the temple. 

The lively discussion, the laughter and shouting of 
the boys at such an unwonted hour, was not unob- 
served by the chief priest. 

This remarkable prelate, Ameni the son of Nebket, 
a scion of an old and noble family, was far more than 
merely the independent head of the temple-brother- 
hood, among whom he was prominent for his power 
and wisdom; for all the priesthood in the length and 
breadth of the land acknowledged his supremacy, 
asked his advice in difficult cases, and never resisted 
the decisions in spiritual matters which emanated 
from the House of Seti — that is to say, from Ameni. 
He was the embodiment of the priestly idea ; and if at 
times he made heavy — nay extraordinary — demands on 
individual fraternities, they were submitted to, for it 
was known by experience that the indirect roads which 
he ordered them to follow all converged on one goal, 
namely the exaltation of the power and dignity of the 
hierarchy. The king api)reciated this remarkable man, 
and had long endeavored to attach him to the court, 


24 


UARDA, 


as keeper of the royal seal; but Ameni was not to be 
induced to give up his apparently modest position; for 
he contemned all outward show and ostentatious titles; 
he ventured sometimes to oppose a decided re- 
sistance to the measures of the Pharaoh,* and was not 
minded to give up his unlimited control of the priests 
for the sake of a limited dominion over what seemed to 
him petty external concerns, in the service of a king 
who was only too independent and hard to influence. 

He regularly arranged his mode and habits of life 
in an exceptional way. 

Eight days out of ten he remained in the temple 
entrusted to his charge; two he devoted to his family, 
who lived on the other bank of the Nile; but he let 
no one, not even those nearest to him, know what 
portion of the ten days he gave up to recreation. He 
required only four hours of sleep. This he usually 
took in a dark room which no sound could reach, and 
in the middle of the day; never at night, when the 
coolness and quiet seemed to add to his powers of 
work, and when from time to time he could give him- 
self up to the study of the starry heavens. 

All the ceremonials that his position required of 
him, the cleansing, purification, shaving, and fasting he 
fulfilled with painful exactitude, and the outer bespoke 
the inner man. 

Ameni was entering on his fiftieth year; his figure 
was tall, and had escaped altogether the stoutness to 
which at that age the Oriental is liable. The shape 
of his smoothly-shaven head was symmetrical and of 

* Pharaoh is the Hebrew form of the Egyptian Peraa— or Phrah. “The 
great house,” “sublime house,” or “high gate ” is the literal meaning. Author. 
— A remnant of the idea seems to survive in the title “ The Sublime Porte.” 

Translator. 


UARDA. 


-5 


along oval; his forehead was neither broad nor high, 
but his profile was unusually 'delicate, and his face 
striking; his lips were thin and dry, and his large and 
piercing eyes, though neither fiery nor brilliant, and 
usually cast down to the ground under his thick eye- 
brows, were raised with a full, clear, dispassionate 
gaze when it was necessary to see and to examine. 

The poet of the House of Seti, the young Pentaur, 
who knew these eyes, had celebrated them in song, 
and had likened them to a well-disciplined army 
which the general allows to rest before and after the 
battle, so that they may march in full strength to 
victory in the fight. 

The refined deliberateness of his nature had in it 
much that was royal as well as priestly; it was partly 
intrinsic and born with him, partly the result of his own 
mental self-control. He had many enemies, but calumny 
seldom dared to attack the high character of Ameni. 

The high -priest looked up in astonishment, as the 
disturbance in the court of the temple broke in on his 
studies. 

The room in which he was sitting was spacious 
and cool; the lower part of the walls was lined with 
earthenware tiles, the upper half plastered and painted. 
But little was visible of the masterpieces of the artists 
of the establishment, for almost everywhere they were 
concealed by wooden closets and shelves, in which 
were papyrus-rolls and wax-tablets. A large table, a 
couch covered with a panther’s skin, a footstool in 
front of it, and on it a crescent-shaped support for 
the head, made of ivory,* several seats, a stand with 

* A support of crescent form on which the Egyptians rested their heads. 
Many specimens were found in the catacombs, and similar objects are still used 
in NiihJ^ 


3 


26 


UARDA. 


beakers and jugs, and another with flasks of all sizes, 
saucers, and boxes, composed the furniture of the room, 
which was lighted by three lamps, shaped like birds and 
filled with kiki oil.* 

Ameni wore a fine pleated robe of snow-white 
linen, which reached to his ankles, round his hips was 
a scarf adorned with fringes, which in front formed an 
apron, with broad, stiffened ends which fell to his 
knees; a wide belt of white and silver brocade confined 
the drapery of his robe. Round his throat and far 
down on his bare breast hung a necklace more than a 
span deep, composed of pearls and agates, and his upper 
arm was covered with broad gold bracelets. He rose 
from the ebony seat with lion’s feet, on which he sat, 
and beckoned to a servant who squatted by one of the 
walls of the sitting-room. He rose and without any 
word of command from his master, he silently and 
carefully placed on the high-priest’s bare head a long 
and thick curled wig,** and threw a leopard-skin, with 
its head and claws overlaid with gold-leaf, over his 
shoulders. A second servant held a metal mirror before 
Ameni, in which he cast a look as he settled the pan- 
ther-skin and head-gear. 

A third servant was handing him the crosier, the 
insignia of his dignity as a prelate, when a priest entered 
and announced the scribe Pentaur. 

Ameni nodded, and the young priest who had talked 
with the princess Bent-Anat at the temple-gate came 
into the room. 

Pentaur knelt and kissed the hand of the prelate, 

*■ Castor oil, which was used in the lamps. 

** Egyptians belonging to the higher classes wore wigs on their shaves 
heads. Several are preserved in museums. 


UARDA. 


27 


who gave him his blessing, and in a clear sweet voice, 
and rather formal and unfamiliar language — as if he 
were reading rather than speaking, said — 

“Rise, my son; your visit will save me a walk at 
this untimely hour, since you can inform me of what 
disturbs the disciples in our temple. Speak.” 

“Little of consequence has occurred, holy father,” 
replied Pentaur. “Nor would I have disturbed thee at 
this hour, but that a quite unnecessary tumult has been 
raised by the youths; and that the princess Bent-Anat 
appeared in person to request the aid of a physician. 
The unusual hour’and the retinue that followed her — ” 
“Is the daughter of Pharaoh sick?” asked the 
prelate. 

“No, father. She is well — even to wantonness, since 
— wishing to prove the swiftness of her horses — 
she ran over the daughter of the paraschites Pinem. 
Noble-hearted as she is, she herself carried the sorely- 
wounded girl to her house. ” 

“ She entered the dwelling of the unclean. ” 

“ Thou hast said. ” 

“ And she now asks to be purified ? ” 

“I thought I might venture to absolve her, father, 
for the purest humanity led her to the act, which was 
no doubt a breach of discipline, but — ” 

“ But, ” asked the high-priest in a grave voice, and 
he raised his eyes which he had hitherto kept fixed 
on the ground. 

“But,” said the young priest, and now his eyes 
fell, “ which can surely be no crime. When Ra* in his 
golden bark sails across the heavens, his light falls as 
freely and as bountifully on the hut of the despised 

* The Egyptian Sun-god. 


28 


UARDA. 


\ 

poor as on the Palace of the Pharaohs; and shall the 
tender human heart withhold its pure light — -which is 
benevolence — from the wretched, only because they 
are base ?” 

“It is the poet Pentaur that speaks,” said the 
prelate, “ and not the priest to whom the privilege was 
given to be initiated into the highest grade of the 
sages, and whom I call my brother and my equal. 
I have no advantage over you, young man, but perish- 
able learning, which the past has won for you as much 
as for me — nothing but certain perceptions and ex- 
periences that offer nothing new -to the world, but 
teach us, indeed, that it is our part to maintain all 
that is ancient in liying efficacy and practice. That 
which you promised a few weeks since, I many years 
ago vowed to the Gods; to guard knowledge as the 
exclusive possession of the initiated. Like fire, it 
serves those who know its uses to the noblest ends, 
but in the hands of children — and the people, the 
mob, can never ripen into manhood — it is a destroying 
brand, raging and unextinguishable, devouring all 
around it, and destroying all that has been built and 
beautified by the past. And how can we remain ‘ the 
Sages’ and continue to develop and absorb all learn- 
ning within the shelter of our temples, not only without 
endangering the weak, but for their benefit ? You 
know and have sworn to act after that knowledge. To 
bind the crowd to the faith and the institutions of 
the fathers is your duty — is the duty of every priest. 
Times have changed, my son ; under the old kings 
the fire, of which I spoke figuratively to you — the 
poet — was enclosed in brazen walls which the people 
passed stupidly by. Now I see breaches in the old 


ITARDA. 


29 


fortifications; llie eyes of the iininitiate<l have been 
sharpened, and one tells the other what he fancies he 
has spied, though half-blinded, through the glowing 
rifts.” 

A slight emotion had given energy to the tones of 
the speaker, and while he held the poet spell-bound 
with his piercing glance he continued : 

“We curse and expel any one of the initiated who 
enlarges these breaches; we punish even the friend 
who idly neglects to repair and close them with beaten 
brass! ” 

“My father!” cried Pentaur, raising his head in 
astonishment while the blood mounted to his cheeks. 

The high-priest went up to him and laid both 
hands cn his shoulders. 

They were of equal height and of equally sym- 
metrical build; even the outline of their features was 
similar. Nevertheless no one would have taken them 
to be even distantly related ; their countenances were 
so infinitely unlike in expression. 

On the face of one w^ere stamped a strong will 
and the power of firmly guiding his life and com- 
manding himself; on the other, an amiable desire to 
overlook the faults and defects of the \vorld, and to 
contemplate life as it painted itself in the transfiguring 
magic-mirror of his poet’s soul. Frankness and enjoy- 
ment spoke in his sparkling eye, but the subtle smile 
on his lips when he w^as engaged in a discussion, or 
when his soul w^as stirred, betrayed that Pentaur, far 
from childlike carelessness, had fought many a severe 
mental battle, and had tasted the dark waters of 
doubt. 

At this moment mingled feelings were struggling 


30 


UARDA. 


in his soul. He felt as if he must withstand the 
speaker; and yet the powerful presence of the other 
exercised so strong an influence over his mind, long 
trained to submission, that he was silent, and a pious 
thrill passed through him when Ameni’s hands were 
laid on his shoulders. 

“ I blame you,” said the high-priest, while he firm- 
ly held the young man, nay, to my sorrow I must 
chastise you ; and yet,” he said, stepping back and tak- 
ing his right hand, “ I rejoice in the necessity, for I love 
you and honor you, as one whom the Unnameable 
has blessed with high gifts and destined to great things. 
Man leaves a weed to grow unheeded or roots it up : 
but you are a noble tree, and I am like the gardener 
who has forgotten to provide it with a prop, and who 
is now thankful to have detected a bend that reminds 
him of his neglect. You look at me enquiringly, and I 
can see in your eyes that I seem to you a severe judge. 
Of what are you accused? You have suffered an in- 
stitution of the past to be set aside. It does not matter 
— so the short-sighted and heedless think ; but I say 
to you, you have doubly transgressed, because the 
wrong-doer was the king’s daughter, whom all look up 
to, great and small, and whose actions may serve as 
an example to the people. On whom then must a 
breach of the ancient institutions lie with the darkest 
stain if not on the highest in rank ? In a few days it 
will be said the paraschites are men even as we are, 
and the old law to avoid them as unclean is folly. And 
will the reflections of the people, think you, end there, 
when it is so easy for them to say that he who errs in 
one point may as well fail in all ? In questions of faith, 
my son, nothing is insignificant. IJ we open one tower 


UARDA. 


31 


to the enemy he is master of the whole fortress. In 
these unsettled times our sacred lore is like a chariot 
on the declivity of a precipice, and under the wheels 
thereof a stone. A child takes away the stone, and the 
chariot rolls down into the abyss and is dashed to 
pieces. Imagine the princess to be that child, and the 
stone a loaf that she would fain give to feed a beggar. 
Would you then give it to her if your father and your 
mother and all that is dear and precious to you were 
in the chariot ? Answer not ! the princess will visit the 
paraschites again to-morrow. You must await her in 
the man’s hut, and there inform her that she has trans- 
gressed and must crave to be purified by us. For this 
time you are excused from any further punishment. 
Heaven has bestowed on you a gifted soul. Strive for 
that which is wanting to you — the strength to subdue, 
to crush for One — and you know that One — all things 
else — even the misguiding voice of your heart, the 
treacherous voice of your judgment. — But stay ! send 
leeches to the house of the paraschites, and desire them 
to treat the injured girl as though she were the queen 
herself. Who knows where the man dwells ?” 

“ The princess,” replied Pentaur, “ has left Paaker, 
the king’s pioneer, behind in the temple to conduct the 
leeches to the house of Pinem.” 

The grave high-priest smiled and said. “ Paaker ! to 
attend the daughter of a paraschites.” 

Pentaur half beseechingly and half in fun raised his 
eyes which he had kept cast down. “ And Pentaur,” 
he murmured, “ the gardener’s son ! who is to refuse 
absolution to the king’s daughter !” 

Pentaur, the minister of the Gods — Pentaur, the 
priest — has not to do with the daughter of the king, 


32 


TARDA. 


but with the transgressor of the sacred institutions,” 
replied Ameni gravely. “ Let Paaker know I wish to 
speak with him.” 

The poet bowed low and quitted the room, the high- 
priest muttered to himself : “ He is not yet what he 
should be, and speech is of no effect with him.” 

For a while he was silent, walking to and fro in 
meditation ; then he said half aloud, “ And the boy is 
destined to great things. What gifts of the Gods doth 
he lack ? He has the faculty of learning — of thinking 
— of feeling — of winning all hearts, even mine. He 
keeps himself undefiled and separate — ” suddenly the 
prelate paused and struck his hand on the back of a 
chair that stood by him. “ I have it ; he has not yet 
felt the fire of ambition. We will light it for his pro- 
fit and our own.” 


CHAPTER III. 


Pentaur hastened to execute the commands of the 
high-priest. He sent a servant to escort Paaker, who 
was waiting in the forecourt, into the presence of Ameni 
while he himself repaired to the physicians to impress 
on them the most watchful care of the unfortunate 
girl. 

Many proficients in the healing arts* were brought 
up in the house of Seti, but few used to remain after 
passing the examination for the degree of Scribe. The 

* What is here stated with regard to the medical schools is principally 
derived from the medical writings of the Egyptians themselves, among which 
the “ Ebers Papyrus” holds the first place, “Medical Papyrus I.” of Berlin 
the second, and a hieratic MS. in London which, like the first mentioned, 
has come down to us from the i8th dynasty, lakes the third. Also see 
Herodotus 11 . 8^. Diodorus I. 82. 


UARDA. 


33 


most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in 
the great “ Hall of the Ancients,” the most celebrated 
medical faculty of the whole country, whence they re- 
turned to Thebes, endowed with the highest honors in 
surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch of 
their profession, and became physicians to the king or 
made a living by imparting their learning and by being 
called in to consult on serious cases. 

Naturally most of the doctors lived on the east bank 
of the Nile, in Thebes proper, and even in private houses 
with their families ; but each was attached to a priestly 
college- 

Whoever required a physician sent for him, not to 
his own house, but to a temple. There a statement 
was required of the complaint from which the sick 
person was suffering, and it was left to the principal 
of the medical staff of the sanctuary to select that 
master of the healing art whose special knowledge 
appeared to him to be suited for the treatment of the 
case. 

Like all priests, the physicians lived on the income 
which came to them from their landed property, from 
the gifts of the king, the contributions of the laity, and 
the share which was given them of the state-revenues; 
they expected no honorarium from their patients, but 
the restored sick seldom neglected making a present to 
the sanctuary whence a physician had come to them, 
and it was not unusual for the priestly leech to make 
the recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain gifts 
to be offered to the temple. 

The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was, ac- 
cording to every indication, very considerable; but it 
was natural that physicians, who stood by the bed of 


34 


UARDA. 


sickness as ordained servants of the Divinity,” should 
not be satisfied with a rational treatment of the sufferer, 
and should rather think that they could not dispense 
with the mystical effects of prayers and vows. 

Among the professors of medicine in the House of 
Seti there were men of the most different gifts and bent 
of mind ; but Pentaur was not for a moment in doubt 
as to which should be entrusted with the treatment of 
the girl who had been run over, and for whom he felt 
the greatest sympathy. 

The one he chose was the grandson of a celebrated 
leech, long since dead, whose name of Nebsecht he 
had inherited, and a beloved school-friend and old com- 
rade of Pentaur. 

This young man had from his earliest years shown 
high and hereditary talent for the profession to which 
he had devoted himself ; he had selected surgery* for 
his special province at Heliopolis, and would certainly 
have attained the dignity of teacher there if an impedi- 
ment ih his speech had not debarred him from the viva 
voce recitation of formulas and prayers. 

This circumstance, which was deeply lamented by 
his parents and tutors, was in fact, in the best opinions, 
an advantage to him ; for it often happens that apparent 
superiority does us damage, and that from apparent de- 
fect springs the saving of our life. 

Thus, while the companions of Nebsecht were em- 
ployed in declaiming or in singing, he, thanks to his 
fettered tongue, could give himself up to his inherited 
and almost passionate love of observing organic life; and 

* Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of 
Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments ; otherwise the very badly- 
set fractures found in some of the mummies ^o little honor to the Egyptian 
surgeons, 


UARDA. 


35 


his teachers indulged up to a certain point his innate 
spirit of investigation, and derived benefit from his 
knowledge of the human and animal structures, and 
from the dexterity of his handling. 

His deep aversion for the magical part of his profes- 
sion would have brought him heavy punishment, nay 
very likely would have cost him expulsion from the 
craft, if he had ever given it expression in any form. 
But Nebsecht’s was the silent and reserved nature of 
the learned man, who free from all desire of external 
recognition, finds a rich satisfaction in the delights of 
investigation; and he regarded every demand on him 
to give proof of his capacity, as a vexatious but un- 
avoidable intrusion on his unassuming but laborious 
and fruitful investigations. 

Nebsecht was dearer and nearer to Pentaur than 
any other of his associates. 

He admired his learning and skill; and when the 
slightly -built surgeon, who was indefatigable in his wan- 
derings, roved through the thickets by the Nile, the 
desert, or the mountain range, the young poet-priest ac- 
companied him with pleasure and with great benefit to 
himself, for his companion observed a thousand things to 
which without him he would have remained for ever 
blind; and the objects around him, which were known 
to him only by their shapes, derived connection and sig- 
nificance from the explanations of the naturalist, whose 
intractable tongue moved freely when it was required to 
expound to his friend the peculiarities of organic beings 
whose development he had been the first to detect. 

The poet was dear in the sight of Nebsecht, and he 
loved Pentaur, who possessed all the gifts he lacked; 
manly beauty, childlike lightness of heart, the frankest 


UARDA. 


openness, artistic power, and the gift of expressing in 
word and song every emotion that stirred his soul. 

The poet was as a novice in the order in which 
Nebsecht was master, but quite capable of understand- 
ing its most difficult points; so it happened that Neb- 
secht attached greater value to his judgment than to 
that of his own colleagues, who showed themselves 
fettered by prejudice, while Pentaur’s decision always 
was free and unbiassed. 

The naturalist’s room lay on the ground floor, and 
had no living-rooms above it, being under one of the 
granaries attached to the temple. It was as large as a 
public hall, and yet Pentaur, making his way towards 
the silent owner of the room, found it everywhere 
strewed with thick bundles of every variety of plant, 
with cages of palm-twigs piled four or five high, and a 
number of jars, large and small, covered with perforated 
paper. Within these prisons moved all sorts of living 
creatures, from the jerboa, the lizard of the Nile, and a 
light-colored species of owl, to numerous specimens of 
frogs, snakes, scorpions and beetles. 

On the solitary table in the middle of the room, 
near to a writing-stand, lay bones of animals, with va- 
rious sharp flints and bronze knives. 

In a corner of this room lay a mat, on which stood 
a wooden head-prop, indicating that the naturalist was 
in the habit of sleeping on it. 

When Pentaur’s step was heard on the threshold of 
this strange abode, its owner pushed a rather large ob- 
ject under the table, threw a cover over it, and hid a 
sharp flint scalpel* fixed into a wooden handle, which 

* The Egyptians seem to have preferred to use flint instruments for surgi- 
cal purposes, at any rate for the opening of bodies and for circumcision. Many 
flint instruments have been found and preserved in museums. 


■UARDA. 


37 


he had just been using, in the folds of his robe — as a 
school-boy might hide some forbidden game from his 
master. Then he crossed his arms, to give himself the 
aspect of a man who is dreaming in harmless idleness. 

The solitary lamp, which was fixed on a high stand 
near his chair, shed a scanty light, which, however, suf- 
ficed to show him his trusted friend Pentaur, who had 
disturbed Nebsecht in his prohibited occupations. Neb- 
secht nodded to him as he entered, and, when he had 
seen who it was, said: 

“You need not have frightened me so!” Then he 
drew out from under tlie table the object he had hidden 
— a living rabbit fastened down to a board — and con- 
tinued his interrupted observations on the body, which 
he had opened and fastened back with wooden pins 
while the heart continued to beat. 

He took no further notice of Pentaur, who for some 
time silently watched the investigator; then he laid his 
hand on his shoulder and said : 

“Lock your door more carefully, when you are 
busy with forbidden things.” 

“They took — they took away the bar of the door 
lately,” stammered the naturalist, “when they caught 
me dissecting the hand of the forger Ptahmes.”* 

“The mummy of the poor man will find its right 
hand wanting,” answered the poet. 

“He will not want it out there.” 

“Did you bury the least bit of an image in his 
grave?”** 

“Nonsense.” 

* The law sentenced forgers to lose a hand. 

** Small statuettes, placed in graves to help the dead in the work performed hi 
the under-world. They have axes and ploughs in their hands, and seed-bags on 
their backs. I'he sixth chapter of the Hook of the Dead is inscribed cn nearly all 


3 « 


UARDA. 


*‘You go very far, Nebsecht, and are not foreseeing. 
‘He who needlessly hurts an innocent animal shall be 
served in the same way by the spirits of the nether- 
world,’ says the law; but I see what you will say. You 
hold it lawful to put a beast to pain, when you can 
thereby increase that knowledge by which you alleviate 
the sufferings of man, and enrich — ” 

“And do not you?” 

A gentle smile passed over Pentaur’s face; he 
leaned over the animal and said : 

“ How curious ! the little beast still lives and breathes ; 
a man would have long been dead under such treat- 
ment. His organism is perhaps of a more precious, 
subtle, and so more fragile nature ?” 

Nebsecht shrugged his shoulders. 

“Perhaps!” he said. 

“ I thought you must know.” 

“I — how should I?” asked the leech. “I have told 
you — they would not even let me try to find out how 
the hand of a fofger moves.” 

“ Consider, the scripture tells us the passage of the 
soul depends on the preservation of the body.” 

Nebsecht looked up with his cunning little eyes and 
shrugging his shoulders, said: 

“Then no doubt it is so: however these things do 
not concern me. Do what you like with the souls of 
men; I seek to know something of their bodies, and 
patch them when they are damaged as well as 
may be.” 

“Nay — Toth be praised,* at least you need not 
deny that you are master in that art.” 


* Toth is the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was sacred 
to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra created him “a 


UARDA. 


39 


*‘Who is master,” asked Nebsecht, “excepting 
God? I can do nothing, nothing at all, and guide 
my instruments with hardly more certainty than a 
sculptor condemned to work in the dark,” 

“ Something like the blind Resu then,” said Pentaur 
smiling, “ who understood painting better than all the 
painters who could see.” 

“ In my operations there is a ‘better’ and a ‘worse;’” 
said Nebsecht, “but there is nothing ‘good.’ ” 

“Then we must be satisfied with the ‘better,’ and 
I have come to claim it,” said Pentaur. 

“Are you ill?” 

“ Isis be praised, I feel so well that I could uproot 
a palm-tree, but I would ask you to visit a sick girl. 
The princess Bent-Anat — ” 

“The royal family has its own physicians.” 

“Let me speak! the princess Bent-Anat has run 
over a young girl, and the poor child is seriously 
hurt.” 

“Indeed,” said the student reflectively. “Is she 
over there in the city, or here in the Necropolis?” 

“ Here. She is in fact the daughter of a para- 
schites.” 

“Of a paraschites ?” exclaimed Nebsecht, once 
more slipping the rabbit under the table, “then I 
will go.” 

“You curious fellow. I believe you expect to find 
something strange among the unclean folk.” 


beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemj Onginally the Moon-g^, 
he became the lord of time and measure. He is the weighs, the philosopher 
among the gods, the lord of writing, of art and of learning. The Greeks called 
him Hermes Trismegistus, r ^ threefold or ‘‘very ^at .which wa«, in fact, in 
imitation of the Egyptians, whose name Toth or Techuti sigrafied twofold, lu 


40 


UARDA. 


“That is my affair; but I will go. What is the 
man’s name ?” 

“Pinem.” 

“There will be nothing to be done with him,” 
muttered the student, “ however — who knows ?” 

With these words he rose, and opening a tightly 
closed flask he dropped some strychnine* on the nose 
and in the mouth of the rabbit, which immediately 
ceased to breathe. Then he laid it in a box and 
said, “ I am ready.” 

“But you cannot go out of doors in this stained 
dress.” 

The physician nodded assent, and took from a 
chest a clean robe, which he was about to throw on 
over the other; but Pentaur hindered him. “First 
take off your working dress,” he said laughing. “ I will 
help you. But, by Besa,** you have as many coats as 
an onion.” 

Pentaur was known as a mighty laugher among 
his companions, and his loud voice rung in the quiet 
room, when he discovered that his friend was about 
to put a third clean robe over two dirty ones, and 
wear no less than three dresses at once. 

Nebsecht laughed too, and said, “Now I know 
why my clothes were so heavy, and felt so intolerably 
hot at noon. While I get rid of my superfluous cloth- 
ing, will you go and ask the high-priest if I have leave 
to quit the temple.” 

“iHe commissioned me to send a leech to the 


* Strychnine was a poison well known to the Egyptians. 

** The god of the toilet of the Egyptians. He was represented as a de- 
formed pigmy. He led the women to conquest in love, and the men in war. 
He was probably of Arab orifjm. 


UARDA. 


41 


paraschites, and added that the girl was to be treated 
like a queen.” 

“Ameni? and did he know that we have to do 
with a paraschites ?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“Then I snail begin to believe that broken limbs 
may be set with vows — aye, vows! You know I cannot 
go alone to the sick, because my leather tongue is 
unable to recite the sentences or to wring rich offer- 
ings for the temple from the dying. Go, while I un- 
dress, to the prophet Gagabu and beg him to send the 
pastophorus Teta, who usually accompanies me.” 

“I would seek a young assistant rather than that 
blind old man.” 

“Not at all. I should be glad if he would stay at 
home, and only let his tongue creep after me like an 
eel or a slug. Head and heart have nothing to do 
with his wordy operations, and they go on like an ox 
treading out com.”* 

“It is true,” said Pentaur; “just lately I ^aw the 
old man singing out his litanies by a sick-bed, and all 
the time quietly counting the dates, of which they had 
given him a whole sack-full.” 

“He will be unwilling to go to the paraschites, 
who is poor, and he would sooner seize the whole 
brood of scorpions yonder than take a piece of bread 
from the hand of the unclean. Tell him to come and 
fetch me, and drink some wine. There stands three 
days’ allowance; in this hot weather it dims my sight. 


* In Egypt, as in Palestine, beasts trod out the com, as we leam from 
many pictures in the catacombs, even in the remotest ages ; often with the ad- 
dition of a weighted sledge, to the runners of which rollers are attached. It 
is now called noreg. 

4 


42 


UARDA. 


Does the paraschites live to the north or south of the 
Necropolis?” 

“ I think to the north. Paaker, the king’s pioneer, 
will show you the way.” 

“ He!” exclaimed the student, laughing. “What day 
in the calendar is this, then ?* The child of a para- 
schites is to be tended like a princess, and a leech 
have a noble to guide him, like the Pharaoh himself! 
I ought to have kept on my three robes!” 

“The night is warm,” said Pentaur. 

“ But Paaker has strange ways with him. Only the 
day before yesterday I was called to a poor boy whose 
collar bone he had simply smashed with his stick. If 
I had been the princess’s horse I would rather have 
trodden him down than a poor little girl.” 

“So would I,” said Pentaur laughing, and left the 
room to request the second prophet Gagabu, who was 
also the head of the medical staff of tlie House of 
Seti, to send the blind pastophorus** Teta, with his 
friend as singer of the litany. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Pentaur knew where to seek Gagabu, for he him- 
self had been invited to the banquet which the 
prophet had prepared in honor of two sages who had 


" Calendars have been preserved, the completest is the papyTiis Sallier IV. , 
which has been admirably treated by F. Chabas. Many days are noted as 
lucky, unlucky, etc. In the temples many Calendars of feasts have been found, 
the most perfect at Medinet Abu, deciphered by Diimich. 

** The Pastophori were an order of priests to which the physicians 
belonged. 


UARDA. . 43 

lately come to the House of Seti from the university 
of Chennu.* 

In an open court, surroundefl by gaily-painted 
wooden pillars, and lighted by many lamps, sat the 
feasting ])riests in two long rows on comfortable arm- 
chairs. Before each stood a little table, and servants 
were occupied in supplying them with the dishes and 
drinks, which were laid out on a splendid table in the 
middle of the court. Joints of gazelle,** roast geese 
and ducks, meat pasties, artichokes, asparagus and 
other vegetables, and various cakes and sweetmeats 
were carried to the guests, and their beakers well- 
filled with the choice wines of which there was never 
any lack in the lofts of the House of Seti.*** In the 
spaces between the guests stood servants with metal 
bowls, in which they might wash their hands, and 
towels of fine linen. 

When their hunger was appeased, the wine flowed 
more freely, and each guest was decked with sweetly- 
smelling flowers, whose odor was supposed to add to 
the vivacity of the conversation. 

Many of the sharers in this feast wore long, snow- 
white garments, and were of the class of the Initiated 
into the mysteries of the faith, as well as chiefs of the 
different orders of priests of the House of Seti. 

The second prophet, Gagabu, who was to-day 
charged with the conduct of the feast by Ameni — 

* Chennu was situated on a bend of the Nile, not far from the Nubian 
frontier ; it is now called Gcbel Silsileh ; it was in very ancient times the seat of 
a celebrated seminary. 

** Gazelles were tamed for domestic animals • we find them in the rep- 
resentations of the herds of the wealthy Egyptians and as slaughtered for 
food. The banquet is described from the pictures of feasts which have been 
found in the tombs. 

*’'* Cellars maintain the mean temperature of the climate, and in Egypt are 
hot. Wine is best preserved in shady and airy lofts. 


44 


UARDA. 


who on such occasions only showed himself for a few 
minutes — was a short, stout man with a bald and 
almost spherical head. His features were those of a 
man of advancing years, but well-formed, and his 
smoothly-shaven, plump cheeks were well-rounded. His 
grey eyes looked out cheerfully and observantly, but 
had a vivid sparkle when he was excited and began to 
twitch his thick, sensual mouth. 

Close by him stood the vacant, highly-ornamented 
chair of the high-priest, and next to him sat the priests 
arrived from Chennu, two tall, dark-colored old men. 
The remainder of the company was arranged in the order 
of precedency, which they held in the priests’ colleges, 
and which bore no relation to their respective ages. 

But strictly as the guests were divided with ref- 
erence to their rank, they mixed without distinction 
in the conversation. 

“We know how to value our call to Thebes,” said 
the elder of the strangers from Chennu, Tuauf, whose 
essays were frequently used in the schools,* “for while, 
on one hand, it brings us into the neighborhood of 
the Pharaoh, where life, happiness, and safety flourish, 
on the other it procures us the honor of counting 
ourselves among your number; for, though the university 
of Chennu in former times was so happy as to bring 
up many great men, whom she could call her own, she 
can no longer compare with the House of Seti. Even 
Heliopolis and Memphis are behind you; and if I, my 
humble self, nevertheless venture boldly among you, it 
is because I ascribe your success as much to the active 
influence of the Divinity in your temple, which may 
promote my acquirements and achievements, as to your 

* Some of them are still in existence. 


UARDA. 


45 


great gifts and your industry, in which I will not be 
behind you. I have already seen your high-priest 
Ameni — what a man! And who does not know thy 
name, Gagabu, or thine, Meriapu?” 

“And which of you,” asked the other new-comer, 
“may we greet as the author of the most beautiful 
hymn to Amon, which was ever sung in the land of 
the Sycamore ? Which of you is Pentaur ?” 

“The empty chair yonder,” answered Gagabu, point- 
ing to a seat at the lower end of the table, “ is his. He 
is the youngest of us all, but a great future awaits him.” 

“And his songs,” added the elder of the strangers. 

“Without doubt,” replied the chief of the haruspices,* 
an old man with a large grey curly head, that seemed 
too heavy for his thin neck, which stretched forward — 
perhaps from the habit of constantly watching for signs 
— while his prominent eyes glowed with a fanatical 
gleam. “Without doubt the Gods have granted great 
gifts to our young friend; but it remains to be proved 
how he will use them. I perceive a certain freedom of 
thought in the youth, which pains me deeply. Although 
in his poems his flexible style certainly follows the pre- 
scribed forms, his ideas transcend all tradition; and 
even in the hymns intended for the ears of the people 
I find turns of thought, which might well be called 
treason to the mysteries which only a few months ago 
he swore to keep secret. For instance he says — and wc 
sing — and the laity hear — 

“One only art Thou, Thou Creator of beings; 

And Thou only makest all that is created. 

And again — 

* One of the orders of priests in the Egyptian hierarch/. 


46 


ITARDA. 


He is one only, Alone, without equal ; 

Dwelling alone in the holiest of holies.”* 

Such passages as these ought not to be sung in 
public, at least in times like ours, when new ideas come 
in upon us from abroad, like the swarms of locusts 
from the East.” 

“Spoken to my very soul!” cried the treasurer of 
the temple, “ Ameni initiated this boy too early into the 
mysteries.” 

“ In my opinion, and I am his teacher,” said Gaga- 
bu, “ our brotherhood may be proud of a member who 
adds so brilliantly to the fame of our temple. The 
people hear the hymns without looking closely at the 
meaning of the words. I never saw the congregation 
more devout, than when the beautiful and deeply-felt 
song of praise was sung at the feast of the stairs.** 

“ Pentaur was always thy favorite,” said the former 
speaker. “ Thou wouldst not permit in any one else 
many things that are allowed to him. His hymns are 
nevertheless to me and to many others a dangerous 
performance ; and canst thou dispute the fact that we 
have grounds for grave anxiety, and that things happen 
and circumstances grow up around us which hinder us, 
and at last may perhaps crush us, if we do not, while 
there is yet time, inflexibly oppose them ?” 

“ Thou bringest sand to the desert, and sugar to 
sprinkle over honey,” exclaimed Gagabu, and his lips 
began to twitch. “"Nothing is now as it ought to be, 
and there will be a hard battle to fight ; not with the 
sword, but with this — and this.” And the impatient 

* Hymn to Amon preserved in a papyrus roll at Bulaq, and deciphered by 
Grehaut and L. Stern. 

** A particularly solemn festival in honor of Anton-Chem, held in (h? 
temple of Medinet-Abii, 


UARDA. 


47 


man touched his forehead and his lips. “ And who is 
there more competent than my disciple ? There is the 
champion of our cause, a second cap of Hor, that over- 
threw the evil one with winged sunbeams, and you 
come and would clip his wings and blunt his claws! 
I Alas, alas, my lords ! will you never understand that a 
( lion roars louder than a cat, and the sun shines brighter 
I than an oil-lamp ? Let Pentuar alone, I say; or you will 
I do as the man did, who, for fear of the toothache, had 
j his sound teeth drawn. Alas, alas, in the years to come 
we shall have to bite deep into the flesh, till the blood 
flows, if we wish to escape being eaten up ourselves!” 

“The enemy is not unknown to us also,” said the 
elder priest from Chennu, “although we, on the remote 
southern frontier of the kingdom, have escaped many 
evils that in the north have eaten into our body like a 
cancer. Here foreigners are now' hardly looked upon 
at all as unclean and devilish.”* 

“Hardly?” exclaimed the chief of the haruspices; 
“they are invited, caressed, and honored. Like dust, 
when the simoon blows through the chinks of a wooden 
house, they crowd into the houses and temples, taint 
our manners and language;** nay, on the throne of the 
successors of Ra sits a descendant — ” 

“ Presumptuous man !” cried the voice of the high- 
priest, who at this instant entered the hall, “Hold your 
tongue, and be not so bold as to wag it against him 
who is our king, and wields the sceptre in this kingdom 
as the Vicar of Ra.” 

The speaker bow'ed and was silent, then he and all 
the company rose to greet Ameni, who bowed to them 

* “Typhonisch,” belonging to Typbon or Seth. — Translator. 

** At no period did Egyptian writers use more Semitic words than during 
the reigns of Rameses II. ana nis son Mernephtah, 


48 


UARDA. 


all with polite dignity, took his seat, and turning to 
Gagabu asked him carelessly : 

“ I find you all in most unpriestly excitement ; what 
has disturbed your equanimity ?” 

“We were discussing the overwhelming influx of 
foreigners into Egypt, and the necessity of opposing 
some resistance to them.” 

“You will find me one of the foremost in the at- 
tempt,” replied Ameni. “We have endured much al- 
ready, and news has arrived from the north, which 
grieves me deeply.” 

“Have our troops sustained a defeat?” 

“They continue to be victorious, but thousands of 
our countrymen have fallen victims in the fight or on 
the march. Rameses demands fresh reinforcements. 
The pioneer, Paaker, has brought me a letter from our 
brethren who accompany the king, and delivered a 
document from him to the Regent, which contains the 
order to send to him fifty thousand fighting men ; and 
as the whole of the soldier-caste and all the auxiliaries 
are already under arms, the bondmen of the temple, 
who till our acres, are to be levied, and sent into 
Asia.” 

A murmur of disapproval arose at these words. The 
chief of the haruspices stamped his foot, and Gagabu 
asked: 

“ What do you mean to do ?” 

“To prepare to obey the commands of the king,” 
answered Ameni, “and to call the heads of the temples 
of the city of Amon here without delay to hold a coun- 
cil. Each must first in his holy of holies seek good 
counsel of the Celestials. When we have come to a 


UARDA. 


49 


conclusion, we must next win the Viceroy over to our 
side. Who yesterday assisted at his prayers ?” 

“ It was my turn,” said the chief of the haruspices. 

“ Follow me to my abode, when the meal is over.” 
commanded Ameni. “ But why is our poet missing from 
our circle?” 

At this moment Pentaur came into the hall, and 
while he bowed easily and with dignity to the company 
and low before Ameni, he prayed him to grant that the 
pastophorus Teta should accompany the leech Nebsecht 
to visit the daughter of the paraschites. 

Ameni nodded consent and exclaimed : “ They must 
make haste. Paaker waits for them at the great gate, 
and will accompany them in my chariot.” 

As soon as Pentaur had left the party of feasters, 
the old priest from Chennu exclaimed, as he turned to 
Ameni : 

“ Indeed, holy father, just such a one and no other 
had I pictured your poet. He is like the Sun-god, and 
his demeanor is that of a prince. He is no doubt of 
noble birth.” 

“ His father is a homely gardener,” said the high- 
priest, “who indeed tills the land apportioned to him 
with industry and prudence, but is of humble birth and 
rough exterior. He sent Pentaur to the school* at an early 
age, and we have brought up the wonderfully gifted boy 
to be what he now is.” 

“What office does he fill here in the temple?” 

“He instructs the elder pupils of the high-school in 
grammar and eloquence; he is also an excellent ob- 

* It is certain from the papyri that people of the lower orders could be 
received into the priesthood. Separate castes like those of the Hindoos were 
unknown to the Egyptians. 


50 


uarda. 


server of the starry heavens, and a most skilled inter- 
preter of dreams,” replied Gagabu. “ But here he is 
again. To whom is Paaker conducting our stammering 
physician and his assistant ?” 

“ To the daughter of the paraschites, who has been 
run over,” answered Pentaur. “ But what a rough fellow 
this pioneer is. His voice hurts my ears, and he spoke 
to our leeches as if they had been his slaves.” 

“He was vexed with the commission the princess 
had devolved on him,” said the high-priest benevolent- 
ly, “and his unamiable disposition is hardly mitigated 
by his real piety.” 

“And yet,” said an old priest, “his brother, who left 
us some years ago, and who had chosen me for his 
guide and teacher, was a particularly loveable and docile 
youth.” 

“And his father,” said Ameni. “was one of the 
most superior, energetic, and withal subtle-minded of 
men.” 

“ 'Phen he has derived his bad peculiarities from 
his mother?” 

“ By no means. She is a timid, amiable, soft-hearted 
woman.” 

“ But must the child always resemble its parents ?” 
asked Pentaur. “Among the sons of the sacred bull, 
sometimes not one bears the distinguishing mark of his 
father.” 

“And if Paaker’s father were indeed an Apis,” said 
Gagabu laughing, “according to your view the pioneer 
himself belongs, alas! to the peasant’s stable.” 

Pentaur did not contradict him, but said with a 
smile: 

“Since he left the school bench, where his school- 


UARDA. 


51 


fellows called him the wild ass on account of his un- 
ruliness, he has remained always the same. He was 
stronger than most of them, and yet they knew no 
greater pleasure than putting him in a rage.” 

“Children are so cruel!” said Ameni. “They judge 
only by appearances, and never enquire into the causes 
of them. The deficient are as guilty in their eyes as 
the idle, and Paaker could put forward small claims to 
their indulgence. I encourage freedom and merriment,” 
he continued turning to the priests from Chennu, “among 
our disciples, for in fettering the fresh enjoyment of 
youth we lame our best assistant. The excrescences 
on the natural growth of boys cannot be more surely or 
painlessly extirpated than in their wild games. The 
school-boy is the school-boy’s best tutor.” 

“But Paaker,” said the priest Meriapu, “was not 
improved by the provocations of his companions. Con- 
stant contests with them increased that roughness which 
now makes him the terror of his subordinates and alie- 
nates all affection.” 

“He is the most unhappy of all the many youths, 
who were intrusted to my care,” said Ameni, “ and I 
believe I know why, — he never had a childlike disposi- 
tion, even when in years he was still a child, and the 
Gods had denied him the heavenly gift of good humor. 
Youth should be modest, and he was assertive from 
his childhood. He took the sport of his companions 
for earnest, and his father, who was unwise only 
as a tutor, encouraged him to resistance instead of 
to forbearance, in the idea that he thus would be steeled 
to the hard life of a Mohar.”* 

* The severe duties of the Mohar are well known from the papyrus erf 
Anastasi I. in the Brit. Mus., which has been ably treated by F. Chabas, 
Voyage d’uu Egyptieu. 


52 


UARDA. 


“ I have often heard the deeds of the Mohar spoken 
of,” said the old priest from Chennu, “ yet I do not ex- 
actly know what his office requires of him.” 

“ He has to wander among the ignorant and insolent 
people of hostile provinces, and to inform himself of 
the kind and number of the population, to investigate 
the direction of the mountains, valleys, and rivers, to 
set forth his observations, and to deliver them to the 
house of war,* so that the march of the troops may be 
guided by them.” 

“The Mohar then must be equally skilled as a warrior 
and as a Scribe.” 

“As thou sayest; and Paaker's father was not a hero 
only, but at the same time a writer, whose close and 
clear information depicted the country through which 
he had travelled as plainly as if it were seen from a 
mountain height. He was the first who took the title 
of Mohar. The king held him in such high esteem, 
that he was inferior to no one but the king himself, and 
the minister of the house of war.” 

“Was he of noble race?” 

“ Of one of the oldest and noblest in the country. 
His father was the noble warrior Assa,” answered the 
haruspex, “ and he therefore, after he himself had at- 
tained the highest consideration and vast wealth, es- 
corted home the niece of the King Hor-em-heb, who 
would have had a claim to the throne, as well as the 
Regent, if the grandfather of the present Rameses had 
not seized it from the old family by violence.” 

“ Be careful of your words,” said Ameni, interrupting 
the rash old man. “ Rameses I. was and is the grand- 

* Corresponding to our minister of war. A person of the highest im* 
portance even in the earliest times. 


UARDA. 


S3 


father of our sovereign, and in the king’s veins, from his 
mother’s side, flows the blood of the legitimate descen- 
dants of the Sun-god.” 

“ But fuller and purer in those of the Regent,” the 
haruspex ventured to retort. 

“ But Rameses wears the crown,” cried Ameni, “ and 
will continue to wear it so long as it pleases the Gods. 
Reflect! — your hairs are grey, and seditious words are like 
sparks, which are borne by the wind, but which, if they 
fall, may set our home in a blaze. Continue your 
feasting, my lords ; but I would request you to speak 
no more this evening of the king and his new decree. 
You, Pentaur, fulfil my orders to-morrow morning with 
energy and prudence.” 

The high-priest bowed and left the feast. 

As soon as the door was shut behind him, the old 
priest from Chennu spoke. 

‘‘ What we have learned concerning the pioneer of 
the king, a man who holds so high an office, surprises 
me. Does he distinguish himself by a special acute- 
ness ?” 

“ He was a steady learner, but of moderate ability.” 

“ Is the rank of Mohar then as high as that of a 
prince of the empire ?” 

“ By no means.” 

“ How then is it — ?” 

“ It is, as it is,” interrupted Gagabu. “ The son of 
the vine-dresser has his mouth full of grapes, and the 
child of the door-keeper opens the lock with words.” 

“ Never mind,” said an old priest who had hitherto 
kept silence. “ Paaker earned for himself the post of 
Mohar, and possesses many praiseworthy qualities. He 
is indefatigable and faithful, quails before no danger, 


54 


UARDA. 


and has always been earnestly devout from his boy- 
hood. When the other scholars carried their pocket- 
money to the fruit-sellers and confectioners at the 
temple-gates, he would buy geese, and, when his 
mother sent him a handsome sum, young gazelles, to 
offer to the Gods on the altars. No noble in the land 
owns a greater treasure of charms and images of the 
Gods than he. To the present time he is the most 
pious of men, and the offerings for the dead, which he 
brings in the name of his late father, may be said to 
be- positively kingly.” 

*‘We owe him gratitude for these gifts,” said the 
treasurer, “and the high honor he pays his father, 
even after his death, is exceptional and far-famed.” 

“ He emulates him in every respect,” sneered 
Gagabu; “and though he does not resemble him in 
any feature, grows more and more like him. But un- 
fortunately, it is as the goose resembles the swan, or the 
owl resembles the eagle. For his father’s noble pride 
he has overbearing haughtiness; for kindly severity, 
rude harshness ; for dignity, conceit ; for perseverance, 
obstinacy. Devout he is, and we profit by his gifts. 
The treasurer may rejoice over them, and the dates 
off a crooked tree taste as well as those off a straight 
one. But if I were the Divinity I should prize them 
no higher than a hoopoe’s crest ; for He, who sees into 
the heart of the giver — alas ! what does he see ! Storms 
and darkness are of the dominion of Seth, and in 
there — in there — ” and the old man struck his broad 
breast — “ all is wrath and tumult, and there is not a 
gleam of the calm blue heaven of Ra, that shines soft 
and pure in the Soul of the pious ; no, not a spot as 
large as this wheaten-cake.” 


UARDA. 55 

“ Hast thou then sounded to the depths of his 
soul ?” asked the haruspex. 

“ As this beaker !” exclaimed Gagabu, and he 
touched the rim of an empty drinking- vessel. “ For 
fifteen years without ceasing. The man has been of 
service to us, is so still, and will continue to be. Our 
leeches extract salves from bitter gall and deadly 
poisons ; and folks like these — ” 

“ Hatred speaks in thee,” said the haruspex, inter- 
rupting the indignant old man. 

“ Hatred !” he retorted, and his lips quivered. 
“ Hatred ?” and he struck his breast with his clenched 
hand. “ It is true, it is no stranger to this old 
heart. But open thine ears, O haruspex, and all 
you others too shall hear. I recognize two sorts of 
hatred. The one is between man and man ; that I 
have gagged, smothered, killed, annihilated — with what , 
efforts, the Gods know. In past years I have cer- 
tainly tasted its bitterness, and served it like a wasp, 
which, though it knows that in stinging it must die, 
yet uses its sting. But now I am old in years, that is 
in knowledge, and I know that of all the powerful im- 
pulses which stir our hearts, one only comes solely 
from Seth, one only belongs wholly to the Evil one — 
and that is hatred between man and man. Covetous- 
ness may lead to industry, sensual appetites may beget 
noble fruit, but hatred is a devastator, and in the soul 
that it occupies all that is noble grows not upwards 
and towards the light, but downwards to the earth 
and to darkness. Everything may be forgiven by the 
Gods, save only hatred between man and man. But 
there is another sort of hatred that is pleasing to the 
Gods, and which you must cherish if you would not 


56 


UARDA. 


miss their presence in your souls ; that is, hatred for all 
that hinders the growth of light and goodness and 
purity — the hatred of Horus for Seth. The Gods 
would punish me if I hated Paaker whose father was 
dear to me ; but the spirits of darkness would possess 
the old heart in my breast if it were devoid of horror 
for the covetous and sordid devotee, who would fain 
buy earthly joys of the Gods with gifts of beasts and 
wine, as men exchange an ass for a robe, in whose 
soul seethe dark promptings. Paaker’s gifts can no 
more be pleasing to the Celestials than a cask of attar 
of roses would please thee, haruspex, in which scorpions, 
centipedes, and venomous snakes were swimming, I have 
long led this man’s prayers, and never have I heard 
him crave for noble gifts, but a thousand times for the 
injury of the men he hates.” 

“ In the holiest prayers that come down to us from 
the past,” said the haruspex, “ the Gods are entreated 
to throw our enemies under our feet; and, besides, 
I have often heard Paaker pray fervently for the bliss 
of his parents.” 

“ You are a priest and one of the initiated,” cried 
Gagabu, “ and you know not — or will not seem to 
know — that by the enemies for whose overthrow we 
pray, are meant only the demons of darkness and the 
outlandish peoples by whom Egypt is endangered ! 
Paaker prayed for his parents ? Ay, and so will he for 
his children, for they will be his future as his fore- 
fathers are his past. If he had a wife, his offerings 
would be for her too, for she would be the half of his 
own present.” 

“ In spite of all this,” said the haruspex Septah, 
‘‘ you are too hard in your judgment of Paaker, for 


UARDA. 


57 


although he was born under a lucky sign, the Hathors 
denied him all that makes youth happy. The enemy 
for whose destruction he prays is Mena, the king’s char- 
ioteer, and, indeed, he must have been of superhuman 
magnanimity or of unmanly feebleness, if he could have 
wished well to the man who robbed him of the beauti- 
ful wife who was destined for him.” 

“ How could that happen ?” asked the priest from 
Chennu. “A betrothal is sacred.”* 

^‘Paaker,” replied Septah, “was attached with all the 
strength of his ungoverned but passionate and faithful 
heart to his cousin Nefert, the sweetest maid in Thebes, 
the daughter of Katuti, his mother’s sister; and she was 
promised to him to wife. Then his father, whom he 
accompanied on his marches, was mortally wounded in 
Syria. The king stood by his death-bed, and granting 
his last request, invested his son with his rank and office. 
Paaker brought the mummy of his father home to Thebes, 
gave him princely interment, and then before the time of 
mourning was over, hastened back to Syria, where, while 
the king returned to Egypt, it was his duty to recon- 
noitre the new possessions. At last he could quit the 
scene of war with the hope of marrying Nefert. He 
rode his horse to death the sooner to reach the goal of 
his desires; but when he reached Tanis, the city of 
Rameses, the news met him that his affianced cousin had 
been given to another, the handsomest and bravest man 
in Thebes — the noble Mena. The more precious a thing 
is that we hope to possess, the more we are justified 
in complaining of him who contests our claim, and can 

* In the demotic papyrus preserved at Bulaq (novel by Setnau) first treated 
by H. Brugsch. the following words occur: “ Is it not the law, which unites one 
to another?” l^trothed bndes are mentioned, for instance on the sarcophagus 
of Unnefer at Bulaq. 


S8 


UARDA. 


win it from us. Paaker’s blood must have been as cold 
as a frog’s if he could have forgiven Mena instead of 
hating him, and the cattle he has offered to the Gods to 
bring down their wrath on the head of the traitor may 
be counted by hundreds.” 

“And if you accept them, knowing why they are 
offered, you do unwisely and wrongly,” exclaimed 
Gagabu. “ If I were a layman, I would take good care 
not to worship a Divinity who condescends to serve 
the foulest human ends for a reward. But the omni- 
scient Spirit, that rules the world in accordance with 
eternal laws, knows nothing of these sacrifices, which 
only tickle the nostrils of the evil one. The treasurer 
rejoices when a beautiful spotless heifer is driven in 
among our herds. But Seth rubs his red hands* with 
delight that he accepts it. My friends, I have heard 
the vows which Paaker has poured out over our pure 
altars, like hogwash that men set before swine. Pesti- 
lence and boils has he called down on Mena, and bar- 
renness and heartache on the poor sweet woman; and I 
really cannot blame her for preferring a battle-horse 
to a hippopotamus — a Mena to a Paaker.” 

“Yet the Immortals must have thought his remon- 
strances less unjustifiable, and have stricter views as to 
the inviolable nature of a betrothal than you,” said the 
treasurer, “for Nefert, during four years of married life, 
has passed only a few weeks with her wandering husband, 
and remains childless. It is hard to me to understand 
how you, Gagabu, who so often absolve where we con- 
demn, can so relentlessly judge so great a benefactor to 
our temple.” 

* Red was the color of Seth and Typhon. The evil one is named the; R«d, 
a? fgr instance in the papyrus of Ebers. Red-haired men were ty^honic^ 


UARDA. 


59 


‘‘And I fail to comprehend,” exclaimed the old man, 
“how you — you who so willingly condemn, can so 
weakly excuse this — this — call him what you will.” 

“ He is indispensable to us at this time,” said the 
haruspex. 

“Granted,” said Gagabu, lowering his tone. “And 
I think still to make use of him, as the high-priest has 
done in past years with the best effect when dangers 
have threatened us; and a dirty road serves when it 
makes for the goal. The Gods themselves often permit 
safety to come from what is evil, but shall we therefore 
call evil good — or say the hideous is beautiful ? Make, 
use of the king’s pioneer as you will, but do not, be- 
cause you are indebted to him for gifts, neglect to judge 
him according to his imaginings and deeds if you would 
deserve your title of the Initiated and the Enlightened. 
Let him bring his cattle into our temple and pour his 
gold into our treasury, but do not defile your souls with 
the thought that the offerings of such a heart and such a 
hand are pleasing to the Divinity. Above all,” and the 
voice of the old man had a heart-felt impressiveness, 
“Above all, do not flatter the erring man-^and this is 
what you do — with the idea that he is walking in the 
right way; for your, for our first duty, O my friends, is 
always this — to guide the souls of those who trust in 
us to goodness and truth.” 

“Oh, my master!” cried Pentaur, “how tender is 
thy severity.” 

“ I have shown the hideous sores of this man’s soul,” 
said the old man, as he rose to quit the hall. “Your 
praise will aggravate them, your blame will tend to 
heal them. Nay, if you are not content to do your 
duty, old Gagabu will come some day with his knife 


6o 


UARDA. 


and will throw the sick man down and cut out the 
canker.” 

During this speech the haruspex had frequently- 
shrugged his shoulders. Now he said, turning to the 
priests from Chennu — 

“Gagabu is a foolish, hot-headed old man, and you 
have heard from his lips just such a sermon as the 
young scribes keep by them when they enter on the 
duties of the care of souls. His sentiments are ex- 
cellent, but he easily overlooks small things for the 
sake of great ones. Ameni would tell you that ten 
souls, no, nor a hundred, do not matter when the safety 
of the whole is in question.” 


CHAPTER V. 

The night during which the Princess Bent-Anat 
and her followers had knocked at the gate of the 
House of Seti was past. 

The fruitful freshness of the dawn gave way to 
the heat, which began to pour down from the deep 
blue cloudless vault of heaven. The eye could no 
longer gaze at the mighty globe of light whose rays 
pierced the fine white dust which hung over the 
declivity of the hills that enclosed the city of the 
dead on the west. The limestone rocks showed with 
blinding clearness, the atmosphere quivered as if heated 
over a flame; each minute the shadows grew shorter 
and their outlines sharper. 

All the beasts which we saw peopling the Necro- 
polis in the evening had now withdrawn into their 
lurking places; only man defied the heat of the summer 


UARDA. 


6l 


day. Undisturbed he accomplished his daily work, and 
only laid his tools aside for a moment, with a sigh, when 
a cooling breath blew across the overflowing stream and 
fanned his brow. 

The harbor or dock where those landed who had 
crossed from eastern Thebes was crowded with gay 
barks and boats waiting to return. 

The crews of rowers and steersmen who were at- 
tached to priestly brotherhoods or noble houses, were 
enjoying a rest till the parties they had brought across 
the Nile drew towards them again in long processions. 

Under a wide-spreading sycamore a vendor of 
eatables, spirituous drinks, and acids for cooling the 
water, had set up his stall, and close to him, a crowd 
of boatmen and drivers shouted and disputed as they 
passed the time in eager games at morra.* 

Many sailors lay on the decks of the vessels, others 
on the shore ; here in the thin shade of a palm tree, 
there in the full blaze of the sun, from those burning 
rays they protected themselves by spreading the cotton 
cloths, which served them for cloaks, over their faces. 

Between the sleepers passed bondmen and slaves, 
brown and black, in long files one behind the other, 
bending under the weight of heavy burdens, which 
had to be conveyed to their destination at the temples 
for sacrifice, or to the dealers in various wares. Builders 
dragged blocks of stone, which had come from the 
quarries of Chennu and Suan,** on sledges to the site 
of a new temple ; laborers poured water under the run- 

* Tn Latin “micare digitis.” A game still constantly played in the south 
of Europe, and frequently represented by the Egyptians. The games depicted 
in the monuments are collected by Minutoli, in the Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung, 
tSs2. 

** The Syene of the Greeks, now c-alled Assouan at the first cataract. 


62 


UAKDA. 


ners, that the heavily loaded and dried wood should 
not take fire. 

All these working men were driven with sticks by 
their overseers, and sang at their labor; but the 
voices of the leaders sounded muffled and hoarse, 
though, when after their frugal meal they enjoyed an 
hour of repose, they might be heard loud enough. 
Their parched throats refused to sing in the noontide 
of their labor. 

Thick clouds of gnats followed these tormented 
gangs, who with dull and spirit-broken endurance suf- 
fered alike the stings of the insects and the blows of 
their driver. The gnats pursued them to the very heart 
of the City of the Dead, where they joined themselves 
to the flies and wasps, which swarmed in countless 
crowds around the slaughter houses, cooks’ shops, stalls 
of fried fish, and booths of meat, vegetable, honey, 
cakes and drinks, which were doing a brisk business 
in spite of the noontide heat and the oppressive at- 
mosphere heated and filled with a mixture of odors. 

The nearer one got to the Libyan frontier, the 
quieter it became, and the silence of death reigned in 
the broad north-west valley, where in the southern 
slope the father of the reigning king had caused his 
tomb to be hewn, and where the stone-mason of the 
Pharaoh had prepared a rock tomb for him. 

A newly made road led into this rocky gorge, 
whose steep yellow and brown walls seemed scorched 
by the sun in many blackened spots, and looked like 
a ghostly array of shades that had risen from the 
tombs in the night and remained there. 

At the entrance of this valley some blocks of stone 
formed a sort of doorway, and through this, indifferent 


UARDA. 63 

to the heat of the day, a small but brilliant troop of 
men was passing. 

Four slender youths as staff-bearers led the pro- 
cession, each clothed only with an apron and a flowing 
head-cloth of gold brocade; the mid-day sun played on 
their smooth, moist, red-brown skins, and their supple 
naked feet hardly stirred the stones on the road. 

Behind them followed an elegant, two-wheeled 
chariot, with two prancing brown horses bearing tufts 
of red and blue feathers on their noble heads, and 
seeming by the bearing of their arched necksi and 
flowing tails to express their pride in the gorgeous hous- 
ings, richly embroidered in silver, purple, and blue and 
golden ornaments, which they wore — and even more 
in their beautiful, royal charioteer, Bent-Anat, the daugh- 
ter of Rameses, at whose lightest word they pricked 
their ears, and whose little hand guided them with a 
scarcely perceptible touch. 

Two young men dressed like the other runners fol- 
lowed the chariot, and kept the rays of the sun oft' the 
face of their mistress with large fans of snow-white 
ostrich feathers fastened to long wands. 

By the side of Bent-Anat, so long as the road was 
wide enough to allow of it, was carried Nefert, the wife 
of Mena, in her gilt litter, borne by eight tawny bearers, 
who, running with a swift and equally measured step, 
did not remain far behind the trotting horses of the 
princess and her fan-bearers. 

Both the women, whom we now see for the first 
time in daylight, were of remarkable but altogether 
different beauty. 

The wife of Mena had preserved the appearance 
of a maiden; her large almond-shaped eyes had a 


64 


UARDA. 


dreamy surprised look out from under her long eye- 
lashes, and her figure of hardly the middle-height had 
acquired a little stoutness \Vithout losing its youthful 
grace. No drop of foreign blood flowed in her veins, 

, as could be seen in the color of her skin, which was 
of that fresh and equal hue which holds a medium 
\ between golden yellow and bronze brown — and which 

1 to this day is so charming in the maidens of Abys- 
i sinia — in her straight nose, her well-formed brow, in 
her smooth but thick black hair, and in the fineness of 
her hands and feet, which were ornamented with circles 
of gold. 

The maiden princess next to her had hardly 
reached her nineteenth year, and yet something of a 
womanly self-consciousness betrayed itself in her de 
meanor. Her stature was by almost a head taller 
than that of her friend, her skin was fairer, her blue 
eyes kind and frank, without tricks of glance, but clear 
and honest, her profile was noble but sharply cut, and 
resembled that of her father, as a landscape in the 
mild and softening light of the moon resembles the 
same landscape in the broad clear light of day. The 
scarcely perceptible aquiline of her nose, she inherited 
from her Semitic ancestors,* as well as the slightly 
waving abundance of her brown hair,' over which she 
wore a blue and white striped silk kerchief; its care- 
fully-pleated folds were held in place by a gold ring, 
from which in front a horned uraeus ** raised its head 


* Many portraits have come down to us of Raineses ; the finest is the noble 
statue preserved at Turin. A likeness has been detected between its profile, 
with its slightly aquiline nose, and that of Napoleon I. 

** A venomous Egyptian serpent which was adopted as the symbol of 
sovereign power, in consequence of its swift effects for life or death. It is never 
wanting to the diadem of the Pharaohs. 


UARDA. 


65 


crowned with a disk of rubies. From her left temple 
a large tress, plaited with gold thread, hung down to 
her waist, the sign of her royal birth. She wore a 
purple dress of fine, almost transparent stuff, that was 
confined with a gold belt and straps. Round her 
throat was fastened a necklace like a collar, made of 
pearls and costly stones, and hanging low down on her 
well-formed bosom. 

Behind the princess stood her charioteer, an old 
officer of noble birth. 

Three litters followed the chariot of the princess, and 
in each sat two officers of the court ; then came a dozen 
of slaves ready for any service, and lastly a crowd 
of wand-bearers to drive off the idle populace, and of 
lightly-armed soldiers, who — dressed only in the apron 
and head-cloth — each bore a dagger-shaped sword in 
his girdle, an axe in his right hand, and in his left, in 
token of his peaceful service, a palm-branch. 

Like dolphins round a ship, little girls in long shirt- 
shaped garments swarmed round the whole length of 
the advancing procession, bearing water-jars on their 
steady heads, and at a sign from any one who was 
thirsty were ready to give him a drink.' With steps 
as light as the gazelle they often outran the horses, 
and nothing could be more graceful than the action 
with which the taller ones bent over with the water- 
jars held in both arms to the drinker. 

The courtiers, cooled and shaded by waving fans, 
and hardly perceiving the noontide heat, conversed at 
their ease about indifferent matters, and the princess 
pitied the poor horses, who were tormented as they 
ran, by annoying gadflies ; while the runners and 
soldiers, the litter-bearers and fan-bearers, the girls 


66 


UARDA. 


with their jars and the panting slaves, were compelled 
to exert themselves under the rays of the mid-day 
sun in the service of their masters, till their sinews 
threatened to crack and their lungs to burst their 
bodies. 

At a spot where the road widened, and where, to 
the right, lay the steep cross-valley where the last kings 
of the dethroned race were interred, the procession 
stopped at a sign from Paaker, who preceded the 
princess, and who drove his fiery black Syrian horses 
with so heavy a hand that the bloody foam fell from 
their bits. 

When the Mohar had given the reins into the hand 
of a servant, he sprang from his chariot, and after the 
usual form of obeisance said to the princess: 

“In this valley lies the loathsome den of the people, 
to whom thou, O princess, dost deign to do such high 
honor. Permit me to go forward as guide to thy 
party.” 

“We will go on foot,” said the princess, “and leave 
our followers behind here,” 

Paaker bowed, Bent- An at threw the reins to her 
charioteer and sprang to the ground, the wife of Mena 
and the courtiers left their litters, and the fan-bearers 
and chamberlains were about to accompany their mis- 
tress on foot into the little valley, when she turned 
round and ordered, “ Remain behind, all of you. Only 
Paaker and Nefert need go with me.” 

The princess hastened forward into the gorge, which 
was oppressive with the noon-tide heat; but she mod- 
erated her steps as soon as she observed that the 
frailer Nefert found it difficult to follow her. 


UARDA. 


67 


At a bend in the road Paaker stood still, and with 
him Bent-Anat and Nefert. Neither of them had spoken 
a word during their walk. The valley was perfectly still 
and deserted; on the highest pinnacles of the cliff, 
which rose perpendicularly to the right, sat a long row 
of vultures, as motionless as if the mid-day heat had 
taken all strength out of their wings. 

Paaker bowed before them as being the sacred 
animals of the Great Goddess of Thebes,* and the two 
women silently followed his example. 

“ There,” said the Mohar, pointing to two huts close 
to the left cliff of the valley, built of bricks made of 
dried Nile-mud, “ there, the neatest, next the cave in 
the rock.” 

Bent-Anat went towards the solitary hovel with a 
beating heart; Paaker let the ladies go first. A few 
steps brought them to an ill-constructed fence of cane- 
stalks, palm-branches, briars and straw, roughly thrown 
together. A heart-rending cry of pain from within the 
hut trembled in the air and arrested the steps of the 
two women. Nefert staggered and clung to her stronger 
companion, whose beating heart she seemed to hear. 
Both stood a few minutes as if spellbound, then the 
princess called Paaker, and said : 

“ You go first into the house.” 

Paaker bowed to the ground. 

“ I will call the man out,” he said, “ but how dare 
we step over his threshold. Thou knowest such a 
proceeding will defile us.” 


* She fonned a triad with Anion and Chunsu under the name of Muth. 
I'he great “ Sanctuary of the kingdom ” — the temple of Kamak— was dedicated 
to them. 


I 


68 


UARDA. 


Nefert looked pleadingly at Bent-Anat, but the prin- 
cess repeated her command. 

“ Go before me; I have no fear of defilement.” 

The Mohar still hesitated. 

“Wilt thou provoke the Gods? — and defile thyself?” 

But the princess let him say no more; she signed 
to Nefert, who raised her hands in horror and aversion; 
so, with a shrug of her shoulders, she left her com- 
panion behind with the Mohar, and stepped through an 
opening in the hedge into a little court, where lay two 
brown goats; a donkey with his forelegs tied together 
stood by, and a few hens were scattering the dust about 
in a vain search for food. 

Soon she stood, alone, before the door of the 
paraschites’ hovel. No one perceived her, but she could 
not take her eyes — accustomed only to scenes of order 
and splendor — from the gloomy but wonderfully 
strange picture, which riveted her attention and her 
sympathy. At last she went up to the doorway, which 
was too low for her tall figure. Her heart shrunk 
painfully within her, and she would have wished to 
grow smaller, and, instead of shining in splendor, to 
have found herself wrapped in a beggar’s robe. 

Could she step into this hovel decked with gold 
and jewels as if in mockery ? — ^like a tyrant who should 
feast at a groaning table and compel the starving to 
look on at the banquet. Her delicate perception made 
her feel what trenchant discord her appearance offered 
to all that surrounded her, and the discord pained her; 
for she could not conceal from herself that misery 
and external meanness were here entitled to give the 
key-note and that her magnificence derived no especial 
grandeur from contrast with all these modest acces- 


UARDA. 


69 


sories, amid dust, gloom, and suflfenng, but rather be- 
came disproportionate and hideous, like a giant among 
pigmies. 

She had already gone too far to turn back, or she 
would willingly have done so. The longer she gazed 
into the hut, the^ more deeply she felt the impotence of 
her princely power, the nothingness of the splendid 
gifts with which she approached it, and that she 
might not tread the dusty floor of this wretched hovel 
but in all humility, and to crave a pardon. 

'Fhe room into which she looked was low but not 
very small, and obtained from two cross lights a 
strange and unequal illumination; on one side the light 
came through the door, and on the other through an 
opening in the time-worn ceiling of the room, which had 
never before harbored so many and such different 
guests. 

All attention was concentrated on a group, which 
was clearly lighted up from the doorway. 

On the dusty floor of the room cowered an old 
woman, with dark weather-beaten features and tangled 
hair that had long been grey. Her black -blue cotton 
shirt was open over her withered bosom, and showed a 
blue star tattooed upon it. 

In her lap she supported with her hands the head 
of a girl, whose slender body lay motionless on a nar- 
row, ragged mat. The little white feet of the sick girl 
almost touched the threshold. Near to them squatted 
a benevolent-looking old man, who wore only a coarse 
apron, and sitting all in a heap, bent forward now and 
then, rubbing the child’s feet with his lean hands and 
muttering a few words to himself. 

The suflerer wore nothing but a short petticoat of 


70 


UARDA. 


coarse light-blue stufif. Her face, half resting on the 
lap of the old woman, was graceful and regular in 
form, her eyes were half shut — like those of a child, 
whose soul is wrapped in some sweet dream — ^but 
from her finely chiselled lips there escaped from time 
to time a painful, almost convulsive sob. 

An abundance of soft, but disordered reddish fair 
hair, in which clung a few withered flowers, fell over 
the lap of the old woman and on to the mat where 
she lay. Her cheeks were white and rosy-red, and 
when the young surgeon Nebsecht — who sat by her 
side, near his blind, stupid companion, the litany- 
singer — lifted the ragged cloth that had been thrown 
over her bosom, which had been crushed by the 
chariot wheel, or when she lifted her slender arm, it 
was seen that she had the shining fairness of those 
daughters of the north who not unfrequently came to 
Thebes among the king’s prisoners of war. 

The two physicians sent hither from the House of 
Seti sat on the left side of the maiden on a little 
carpet. From time to time one or the other laid his 
hand over the heart of the sufferer, or listened to her 
breathing, or opened his case of medicaments, and 
moistened the compress on her wounded breast with 
a white ointment. 

In a wide circle close to the wall of the room 
crouched several women, young and old, friends of 
the paraschites, who from time to time gave expression 
to their deep sympathy by a piercing cry of lamentation. 
One of them rose at regular intervals to fill the earthen 
bowl by the side of the physician with fresh water. 
As often as the sudden coolness of a fresh compress on 
her hot bosom startled the sick girl, she opened her 


UARDA. 


V 


eyes, but always soon to close them again for a longer 
interval, and turned them at first in surprise, and then 
with gentle reverence, towards a particular spot. 

These glances had hitherto been unobserved by 
him to whom they were directed. 

Leaning against the wall on the right hand side of 
the room, dressed in his long, snow-white priest’s robe, 
Pentaur stood awaiting the princess. His head-dress 
touched the ceiling, and the narrow streak of light, 
which fell through the opening in the roof, streamed 
on his handsome head and his breast, while all around 
him was veiled in twilight gloom. 

Once more the suffering girl looked up, and her 
glance this time met they*eye of the young priest, who 
immediately raised his hand, and half-mechanically, in 
a low voice, uttered the words of blessing; and then 
once more fixed his gaze on the dingy floor, and 
pursued his own reflections. 

Some hours since he had come hither, obedient to 
the orders of Ameni, to impress on the princess that 
she had defiled herself by touching a paraschites, and 
could only be cleansed again by the hand of the 
priests. 

He had crossed the threshold of the paraschites 
most reluctantly, and the thought that he, of all men, 
had been selected to censure a deed of the noblest 
humanity, and to bring her who had done it to judg- 
ment, weighed upon him as a calamity. 

In his intercourse with his friend Nebsecht, Pentaui 
had thrown off many fetters, and given place to many 
thoughts that his master would have held sinful and 
presumptuous; but at the same time he acknowledged 
the sanctity of the old institutions, which were upheld 


72 


UARD-'.. 


by those whom he had learned to regard as the divinely^ 
appointed guardians of the spiritual possessions of God’s 
people ; nor was he, wholly free from the pride of caste 
and the haughtiness which, with prudent intent, were 
inculcated in the priests. He held the common man, 
who put forth his strength to win a maintenance for 
his belongings by honest bodily labor — the merchant — 
the artizan — the peasant, nay even the warrior, as far 
beneath the godly brotherhood who strove for only 
spiritual ends ; and most of all he scorned the idler, 
given up to sensual enjoyments. 

He held him unclean who had been branded by 
the law ; and how should it have been otherwise ? 

These people, who at the embalming of the dead 
opened the body of the deceased, had become despised 
for their office of mutilating the sacred temple of the 
soul ; but no paraschites chose his calling of his own 
free will.* It was handed down from father to son, and 
he who was born a paraschites — so he was taught — ^liad 
to expiate an old guilt with which his soul had long 
ago burdened itself in a former existence, within another 
body, and which had deprived it of absolution in the 
nether world. It had passed through various animal 
forms, and now began a new human course in the body 
of a paraschites, once more to stand after death in the 
presence of the judges of the under-world. 

Pentaur had crossed the threshold of the man he 
despised with aversion ; the man himself, sitting at the 
feet of the suffering girl, had exclaimed as he saw the 
priest approaching the hovel : 

“ Yet another white robe ! Does misfortune cleanse 
the unclean ?” 


* Diodorus I, 91. 


tJARD\, 


73 


Pentaur had not answered the old man, who on 
his part took no further notice of him, while he rubbed 
the girl’s feet by order of the leech; and his hands im- 
pelled by tender anxiety untiringly continued the same 
movement, as the water-wheel, in the Nile keeps up 
without intermission its steady motion in the stream. 

“Does misfortune cleanse the unclean?” Pentaur 
asked himself. “Does it indeed possess a purifying 
efficacy, and is it possible that the Gods, who gave to 
fire the power of refining metals and to the winds 
power to sweep the clouds from the sky, should desire 
that a man- — made in their own image — that a man 
should be tainted from his birth to his death with an 
indelible stain ?” 

He looked at the face of the paraschites, and it 
seemed to him to resemble that of his father. 

This startled him ! 

And when he noticed how the woman, in whose 
lap the girl’s head was resting, bent over the injured 
bosom of the child to catch her breathing, which she 
feared had come to a stand-still — with the anguish of 
a dove that is struck down by a hawk — he remembered 
a moment in his own childhood, when he had lain 
trembling with fever on his little bed. What then had 
happened to him, or had gone on around him, he had 
long forgotten, but one image was deeply imprinted 
on his soul, that of the face of his mother bending 
over him m deadly anguish, but who had gazed on 
her sick boy not more tenderly, or more anxiously, 
than this despised woman on her suffering child. 

“There is only one utterly unselfish, utterly pure 
and utterly divine love,” said he to himself, “and that 
is the love of Isis for Horus — the love of a mother for 


74 


UARDAv 


her child. If these people were indeed so foul as to 
defile every thing they touch, how would this pure, 
this tender, holy impulse show itself even in them in 
all its beauty and perfection ?” 

“Still,” he continued, “the Celestials have im- 
planted maternal love in the breast of the lioness, of 
the typhonic river-horse of the Nile.” 

He looked compassionately at the wife of the 
paraschites. 

lie saw her dark face as she turned it away from 
the sick girl. She had felt her breathe, and a smile 
of happiness lighted up her old features; she nodded 
first to the surgeon, and then with a deep sigh of 
relief to her husband, who, while he did not cease the 
movement of his left hand, held up his right hand in 
prayer to heaven, and his wife did the same. 

It seemed to Pentaur that he could see the souls 
of these two, floating above the youthful creature in 
holy union as they joined their hands; and again he 
thought of his parents’ house, of the hour when his 
sweet, only sister died. His mother had thrown her- 
self weeping on the pale form, but his father had 
stamped his foot and had thrown back his head, 
sobbing and striking his forehead with his fist. 

“ How piously submissive and thankful are these 
unclean ones!” thought Pentaur; and repugnance for 
the old laws began to take root in his heart. “ Maternal 
love may exist in the hyaena, but to seek and find God 
pertains only to man, who has a noble aim. Up to the 
limits of eternity — and God is eternal! — thought is 
denied to animals; they cannot even smile. Even men 
cannot smile at first, for only physical life — an animal 
soul — dwells in them; but soon a share of the world’s 


VARDA. 


75 


soul — beaming intelligence — works within them, and 
first shows itself in the smile of a child, which is as 
pure as the light and the truth from which it comes. 
The child of the paraschites smiles like any other 
creature born of woman, but how few aged men there 
are, even among the initiated, who can smile as in- 
nocently and brightly as this woman who has grown 
grey under open ill-treatment.” 

Deep sympathy began to fill his heart, and he knelt 
down by the side of the .poor child, raised her arm, 
and prayed fervently to that One who had created 
the heavens and who rules the world — to that One, 
whom the mysteries of faith forbade him to name; 
and not to the innumerable gods, whom the people 
worshipped, and who to him were nothing but in- 
carnations of the attributes of the One and only 
God of the initiated — of whom he was one — who 
was thus brought down to the comprehension of the 
laity. 

He raised his soul to God in passionate emotion ; 
but he prayed, not for the child before him and for 
her recovery, but rather for the whole despised race, and 
for its release from the old ban, for the enlightenment 
of his own soul, imprisoned in doubts, and for strength 
to fulfil his hard task with discretion. 

The gaze of the sufferer followed him as he took up 
his former position. 

The prayer had refreshed his soul and restored him 
to cheerfulness of spirit. He began to reflect what 
conduct he must observe towards the princess. 

He had not met Bent-Anat for the first time yester- 
day ; on the contrary, he had frequently seen her in 
holiday processions, and at the high festivals in the 


UARDA. 


76 

Necropolis, r.nd like all his young companions had ao- 
mired her proud beauty — admired it as the distant light 
of the stars, or the evening-glow on the horizon. 

Now he must approach this lady with words of 
reproof. 

He pictured to himself the moment when he must 
advance to meet her, and could not help thinking of 
his little tutor Chufu, above whom he towered by two 
heads while he was still a boy, and who used to call 
up his admonitions to him fr^m below. It was true, 
he himself was tall and slim, but he felt as if to-day 
he were to play the part towards Bent-Anat of the 
much-laughed-at little tutor. 

His sense of the comic was touched, and asserted 
itself at this serious moment, and with such melancholy 
surroundings. Life is rich in contrasts, and a suscep- 
tible and highly-strung human soul would break down 
like a bridge under the measured tread of soldiers, if it 
were allowed to let the burden of the heaviest thoughts 
and strongest feelings work upon it in undisturbed 
monotony; but just as in music every key-note has its 
harmonies, so when we cause one chord of our heart 
to vibrate for long, all sorts of strange notes resjjond 
and clang, often those which we least expect. 

P ntaur’s glance flew round the one low, over-filled 
room of the paraschites’ hut, and like a lightning flash 
the thought, “How will the princess and her train find 
room here?” flew through his mind. 

His fancy was lively, and vividly brought before 
him how the daughter of the Pharaoh with a crown 
on her proud head would bustle into the silent chamber, 
how the chattering courtiers would follow her, and how 
the women by the walls, the physicians by the side of 


UARDA, 


77 


the sick girl, the sleek white cat from the chest 
where she sat, would rise and throng round her. 
There must be frightful confusion. Then he imagined 
how the smart lords and ladies would keep them- 
selves far from the unclean, hold their slender hands 
over their mouths and noses, and suggest to the 
old folks how they ought to behave to the princess 
who condescended to bless them with her presence. 
The old woman must lay down the head that rested 
in her bosom, the paraschites must drop the feet he so 
anxiously rubbed, on the floor, to rise and kiss the 
dust before Bent-Anat. Whereupon — the “mind’s eye” 
of the young priest seemed to see it all — the courtiers 
fled before him, pushing each other, and all crowded 
together into a corner, and at last the princess threw a 
few silver or gold rings into the laps of the father and 
mother, and perhaps to the girl too, and he seemed to 
hear the courtiers all cry out: “Hail to the gracious 
daughter of the Sun!” — to hear the joyful exclamations 
of the crowd of women — to see the gorgeous appari- 
tion leave the hut of the despised people, and then to 
see, instead of the lovely sick child who still breathed 
audibly, a silent corpse on the crumpled mat, and in 
the place of the two tender nurses at her head and 
feet, two heart-broken, loud-lamenting wretches. 

Pentaur’s hot spirit was full of wrath. As soon as 
the noisy cortege appeared actually in sight he would 
place himself in the doorway, forbid the princess to 
enter, and receive her with strong words. 

She could hardly come hither out of human kind- 
ness. 

“She wants variety,” said he to himself, “something 
new at Court; for there is little going on there now 


78 


UARDA. 


the king tarries with the troops in a distant country; 
it tickles the vanity of the great to find themselves 
once in a while in contact with the small, and it is 
well to have your goodness of heart spoken of by the 
people. If a little misfortune opportunely happens, it 
is not w’orth the trouble to inquire whether the form 
of our benevolence does more good or mischief to such 
wretched people.” 

He ground his teeth angrily, and thought no more 
of the defilement which might threaten Bent-Anat from 
the paraschites, but exclusively, on the contrary, of the 
impending desecration by the princess of the holy feel- 
ings astir in this silent room. 

Excited as he was to fanaticism, his condemning 
lips could not fail to find vigorous and impressive 
words. 

He stood drawn to his full height and drawing his 
breath deeply, like a spirit of light who holds his 
weapon raised to annihilate a demon of darkness, and 
he looked out into the valley to perceive from afar the 
cry of the runners and the rattle of the wheels of the 
gay train he expected. 

And he saw the doorway darkened by a lowly, 
bending figure, who, with folded arms, glided into the 
room and sank down silently by the side of the sick 
girl. The physicians and the old people moved as if 
to rise; but she signed to them without opening her 
lips, and with moist, expressive eyes, to keep their 
places ; she looked long and lovingly in the face of the 
wounded girl, stroked her white arm, and turning to 
the old woman softly whispered to her — 

“ How pretty she is !” 

The paraschites’ wife nodded assent, and the girl 


UARDA. 


79 


smiled and moved her lips as though she had caught 
the words and wished to speak. 

Bent-Anat took a rose from her hair and laid it on 
her bosom. 

The paraschites, who had not taken his hands from 
the feet of the sick child, but who had followed every 
movement of the princess, now whispered, “ May Hathor 
requite thee, who gave thee thy beauty.” 

The princess turned to him and said, “ Forgive the 
sorrow, I have caused you.” 

The old man stood up, letting the feet of the sick 
girl fall, and asked in a clear loud voice — 

“Art thou Bent-Anat?” 

“Yes, I am,” replied the princess, bowing her head 
low, and in so gentle a voice, that it seemed as though 
she were ashamed of her proud name. 

The eyes of the old man flashed. Then he said 
softly but decisively — 

“ Leave my hut then, it will defile thee.” 

“Not till you have forgiven me for that which I did 
unintentionally.” 

“Unintentionally! I believe thee,” replied the para- 
schites. “ The hoofs of thy horse became unclean when 
they trod on this white breast. Look here — ” and he 
lifted the cloth from the girl’s bosom, and showed her 
the deep red wound, “ Look here — here is the first rose 
you laid on my grandchild’s bosom, and the second — 
there it goes.” 

The paraschites raised his arm to fling the flower 
through the door of his hut. But Pentaur had ap- 
proached him, and with a grasp of iron held the old 
man’s hand. 

“ Stay,” he cried in an eager tone, moderated how- 


So 


UARDA. 


ever for the sake of the sick girl. “The third rose, 
which this noble hand has offered you, your sick heart 
and silly head have not even perceived. And yet you 
must know it if only from your need, your longing for 
it. The fair blossom of pure benevolence is laid on 
your child’s heart, and at your very feet, by this proud 
princess. Not with gold, but with humility. And 
whoever the daughter of Raineses approaches as her 
equal, bows before her, even if he were the first prince 
in the Land of Egypt. Indeed, the Gods shall not 
forget this deed of Bent-Anat. And you — forgive, if you 
desire to be forgiven that guilt, which you bear as an 
inheritance from your fathers, and for your own sins.” 

The paraschites bowed his head at these words, 
and when he raised it the anger had vanished from his 
well-cut features. He rubbed his wrist, which had been 
squeezed by Pentaur’s iron fingers, and said in a tone 
which betrayed all the bitterness of his feelings : 

“ Thy hand is hard. Priest, and thy words hit like 
the strokes of a hammer. This fair lady is good and 
loving, and I know that she did not drive her horse in- 
tentionally over this poor girl, who is my grandchild and 
not my daughter. If she were thy wife or the wife of 
the leech there, or the child of the poor woman yonder, 
who supports life by collecting the feet and feathers of 
the fowls that are slaughtered for sacrifice, I would not 
only forgive her, but console her for having made her- 
self like to me ; fate would have made her a murderess 
without any fault of her own, just as it stamped me as 
unclean while I was still at my mother’s breast. Aye 
— I would comfort her; and yet I am not very sensitive. 
Ye holy three of Thebes!* l.owslioiild I be? Great and 

* The triad of Thebes: Amon, Muth and Chimsu. 


L'ARDA. 


8l- 


small get out of my way that T may not toueli them, 
and every day when I liave done wliat it is my busi- 
ness to do they throw stones at me.* The fulfilment 
of duty — which brings a living to other men, which 
makes their happiness, and at the same time earns them 
honor, brings me every day, fresh disgrace and painful 
sores. But I complain to no man, and must forgive — 
forgive — forgive, till at last all that men do to me seems 
quite natural and unavoidable, and I take it all like the 
scorching of the sun in summer, and the dust that the 
west wind blows into my face. It does not make me 
happy, but what can I do ? I forgive all — ” 

The voice of the paraschites had softened, and Bent- 
Anat, who looked down on him with emotion, inter- 
rupted him, exclaiming with deep feeling : 

“ And so you will forgive me ? — poor man !” 

The old man looked steadily, not at her, but at 
Pentaur, while he replied : “ Poor man ! aye, truly, poor 
man. You have driven me out of the world in which 
you live, and so I made a world for myself in this hut. 
I do not belong to you, and if I forget it, you drive me 
out as an intruder — nay as a wolf, who breaks into your 
fold; but you belong just as little to me, only when 
you play the wolf and fall upon me, I must bear it !” 

“ The princess came to your hut as a suppliant, and 
with the wish of doing you some good,” said Pentaur. 

“ May the avenging Gods reckon it to her, when they 
visit on her the crimes of her father against me ! Perhaps 
it may bring me to prison, but it must come out. Seven 
sons were mine, and Raineses took them all from me 

* The paraschites, with an Ethiopian knife, cuts the flesh of the corpse as 
deeply as the law requires ; but instantly takes to flight, while the relatives of 
the deceased pursue him with stones ;ind curses, as if they wished to throw the 
blame on him. 


82 UARDA. 

and sent them to death ; the child of the youngest, this 
girl, the light of my eyes, his daughter has brought to 
her death. Three of my boys the king left to die of 
thirst by the Tenat,* which is to join the Nile to the Red 
Sea, three were killed by the Ethiopians, and the last, 
the star of my hopes, by this time is eaten by the hy- 
senas of the north.” 

At these words the old woman, in whose lap the 
head of the girl rested, broke out into a loud cry, in 
which she was joined by all the other women. 

The sufferer started up frightened, and opened her 
eyes. 

“ For whom are you wailing ?” she asked feebly. 

“ For your poor father,” said the old woman. 

The girl smiled like a child who detects some well- 
meant deceit, and said : 

“ Was not my father here, with you ? He is here, 
in Thebes, and looked at me, and kissed me, and said 
that he is bringing home plunder, and that a good time 
is coming for you. The gold ring that he gave me I 
was fastening into my dress, when the chariot passed 
over me. I was just pulling the knots, when all grew 
black before my eyes, and I saw and heard nothing 
more. Undo it, grandmother, the ring is for you; I 
meant to bring it to you. You must buy a beast for 
sacrifice with»it, and wine for grandfather, and eye- 
salve** for yourself, and sticks of mastic,*** which 
you have so long had to do without.” 

* Literally the ‘ cutting” which, under Seti I., the father of Rameses, 
was the first “Suez Canal;’ a representation of it is found on the northern outer 
wall of the temple of Kamak. It followed nearly the same direction as the Fresh- 
water canal of Lesseps, and fertilized the land of Goshen. 

** The Egyptian mestem, that is stibium or antimony, which was intro- 
duced into Egypt by the Asiatics at a very early period and universally used. 

At the present day the Egyptian women are fond of chewing them, on 
account of their pleasant taste. The ancient Egyptians used various pills. Re- 
ceipts for such things are found in the Ebers Papyrus. 


UARDA. 


83 

The paraschites seemed to drink these words from 
the mouth of his grandchild. Again he lifted his hand 
in prayer, again Pentaur observed that his glance met 
that of his wife, and a large, warm tear fell from his 
old eyes on to his callous hand. Then he sank down, 
for he thought the sick child was deluded by a dream. 
But there were the knots in her dress. 

With a trembling hand he untied them, and a gold 
ring rolled out on the floor. 

Bent-Anat picked it up, and gave it to the paraschites. 

“ I came here in a lucky hour,” she said, “ for you 
have recovered your son and your child will live.” 

“ She will live,” repeated the surgeon, who had re- 
mained a silent witness of all that had occurred. 

“ She will stay with us,” murmured the old man, and 
then said, as he approached the princess on his knees, 
and looked up at her beseechingly with tearful eyes : 

“ Pardon me as I pardon thee ; and if a pious wish 
may not turn to a curse from the lips of the unclean, 
let me bless thee.” 

“ I thank you,” said Bent-Anat, towards whom the 
old man raised his hand in blessing. 

'Phen she turned to Nebsecht, and ordered him to 
take anxious care of the sick girl ; she bent over her, 
kissed her forehead, laid her gold bracelet by her side, 
and signing to Pentaur left the hut with hnn. 


CHAPTER VI. 

During the occurrence we have described, the 
king’s pioneer and the young wife of Mena were 
obliged to wait for the princess. 


84 


UARDA. 


The sun stood in the meridian, when Bent-Anat 
had gone into the hovel of the paraschites. 

The bare limestone rocks on each side of the valley 
and the sandy soil between, shone with a vivid white- 
ness that hurt the eyes ; not a hand’s breadth of shade 
was anywhere to be seen, and the fan-bearers of the 
two, who were waiting there, had, by command of the 
princess, staid behind with the chariot and litters. 

For a time they stood silently near each other, then 
the fair Nefert said, wearily closing her almond-shaped 
eyes : 

“ How long Bent-Anat stays in the hut of the un- 
clean ! I am perishing here. What shall we do ?” 

“ Stay !” said Paaker, turning his back on the lady ; 
and mounting a block of stone by the side of the gorge, 
he cast a practised glance all round, and returned to 
Nefert: “I have found a shady spot,” he said, “out there.” 

Mena’s wife followed with her eyes the indication of 
his hand, and shook her head. The gold ornaments on 
her head-dress rattled gently as she did so, and a cold 
shiver passed ov^r her slim body in spite of the mid- 
day heat. 

“ Sechet* is raging in the sky,” said Paaker. “ Let 
us avail ourselves of the shady spot, small though it be. 
At this hour of the day many are struck with sickness.” 

“I know ’ it,” said Nefert, covering her neck with 
her hand. Then she went towards two blocks of stone 
which leaned against each other, and between them 

* A goddess with the head of a lioness or a cat, over which the Sun-disk is 
usually found. She was the daughter of Ra, and in the form of the Uraeus on 
her father’s crown personified the murderous heat of the star of day. She incites 
man to the hot and wild passion of love, and as a cat or lioness tears burning 
wounds in the limbs of the guilty in the nether world ; drunkenness and pleasure 
are her gifts She was also named Bast :;nd Astarte after her sister-divinity 
among the Phceuicians. 


UARDA. 85 

afforded the spot of shade, not many feet wide, which 
Paaker had pointed out as a shelter from the sun. 

Paaker preceded her, and rolled a flat piece of 
limestone, inlaid by nature with nodules of flint, under 
the stone pavilion, crushed a few scorpions which had 
taken refuge there, spread his head-cloth over the 
hard seat, and said, “ Here you are sheltered.” 

Nefert sank down on the stone and watched the 
Mohar, who slowly and silently paced backwards and 
forward in front of her. This incessant to and fro of 
her companion at last became unendurable to her 
sensitive and irritated nerves, and suddenly raising her 
head from her hand, on which she had rested it, she 
exclaimed — 

“ Pray stand still.” 

The pioneer obeyed instantly, and looked, as he 
stood with his back to her, towards the hovel of the 
paraschites. 

After a short time Nefert said — 

“Say something to me!” 

The Mohar turned his full face towards her, and 
she was frightened at the wild fire that glowed in the 
glance with which he gazed at her. 

Nefert’s eyes fell, and Paaker, saying: 

“I would rather remain silent,” recommenced his 
walk, till Nefert called to him again and said, — 

“I know you are angry with me; but I was but a 
child when I was betrothed to you. I liked you too, 
and when in our games your mother called me your 
little wife, I was really glad, and used to think how 
fine it would be when I might call all your possessions 
mine, the house you would have so splendidly restored 
for me after your father’s death, the noble gardens, the 


86 


UARDA. 


fine horses in their stables, and all the male and 
female slaves!” 

Paaker laughed, but the laugh sounded so forced 
and scornful that it cut Nefert to the heart, and she 
went on, as if begging for indulgence: 

“It was said that you were angry with us; and 
now you will take my words as if I had cared only 
for your wealth; but I said, I liked you. Do you no 
longer remember how I cried with you over your tales 
of the bad boys in the school, and over your father’s 
severity? Then my uncle died; — then you went to 
Asia.” 

“And you,” interrupted Paaker, hardly and drily, 
“you broke your bethrothal vows, and became the wife 
of the charioteer Mena. I know it all; of what use 
is talking?” 

“ Because it grieves me that you should be angry, 
and your good mother avoid our house. If only you 
could know what it is when love seizes one, and one 
can no longer even think alone, but only near, and 
with, and in the very arms of another; when one’s 
beating heart throbs in one’s very temples, and even 
in one’s dreams one sees nothing — ^but one only.” 

“And do I not know it?” cried Paaker, placing 
himself close before her with his arms crossed. “Do 
I not know it? and you it was who taught me to 
know it. When I thought of you, not blood, but 
burning fire, coursed in my veins, and now you have 
filled them with poison; and here in this breast, in 
which your image dwelt, as lovely as that of Hathor 
in her holy of holies, all is like that sea in Syria which 
is called the Dead Sea, in which every thing that tries 
to live presently dies and perishes.” 


UARDA. 87 

Paaker^s eyes rolled as he spoke, and his voice 
sounded hoarsely as he went on. 

“ But Mena was near to the king — nearer than I, 
and your mother — ” 

“ My mother!” — Nefert interrupted the angry Mohar. 
“ My mother did not choose my husband. I saw him 
driving the chariot, and to me he resembled the Sun 
God, and he observed me, and looked at me, and his 
glance pierced deep into my heart like a spear; and 
when, at the festival of the king’s birthday, he spoke 
to me, it was just as if Hathor had thrown round me 
a web o*f sweet, sounding sunbeams. And it was the 
same with Mena; he himself has told me so since I 
have been his wife. For your sake my mother rejected 
his suit, but I grew pale and dull with longing for him, 
and he lost his bright spirit, and was so melancholy 
that the king remarked it, and asked what weighed on 
his heart — for Rameses loves him as his own son. Then 
Mena confessed to the Pharaoh that it was love that 
dimmed his eye and weakened his strong hand; and 
then the king himself courted me for his faithful 
servant, and my mother gave way, and we were made 
man and wife, and all the joys of the justified in the 
fields of Aalu* are shallow and feeble by the side of 
the bliss which we two have known — not like mortal 
men, but like the celestial gods.” 

Up to this point Nefert had fixed her large eyes 
on the sky, like a glorified soul; but now her gaze 
fell, and she said softly — 


* The fields of the blest, which were op)eiied to glorified souls. In the 
Bor)k of the Dead it is shown that in them men linger, and sow and reap by 
cool waters. 


S8 


UARDA. 


“But the Cheta* disturbed our happiness, for the 
king took Mena with him to the war. Fifteen times 
did the moon rise upon our happiness, and then — ” 

“And then the Gods heard my prayer, and accepted 
my offerings,” said Paaker, with a trembling voice, 
“and tore the robber of my joys from you, and 
scorched your heart and his with desire. Do you 
think you can tell me anything I do not know ? Once 
again for fifteen days was Mena yours, and now he 
has not returned again from the war which is raging 
hotly in Asia.” 

“ But he will return,” cried the young wife. • 

“Or possibly not,” laughed Paaker. “The Cheta, 
cany sharp weapons, and there are many vultures in 
Lebanon, who perhaps at this hour are tearing his 
flesh as he tore my heart.” 

Nefert rose at these words, her sensitive spirit 
bruised as with stones thrown by a brutal hand, and 
attempted to leave her shady refuge to follow the 
princess into the house of the paraschites; but her feet 
refused to bear her, and she sank back trembling on 
her stone seat. She tried to find words, but her tongue 
was powerless. Her powers of resistance forsook her 
in her unutterable and soul-felt distress — heart-wrung, 
forsaken and provoked. 

A variety of painful sensations raised a hot vehe- 
ment storm in her bosom, which checked her breath, 
and at last found relief in a passionate and convulsive 
weeping that shook her whole body. She saw nothing 
more, she heard nothing more, she only shed tears and 
felt herself miserable. 

* An Aramaean race, according to Schrader’s excellent judgment. At the 
dine of our story the peoples of western Asia had allied theniseh es to them. 


UARDA. 


89 


Paakcr stood over her in silence. 

There are trees in the tropics, on which white 
blossoms hang close by the withered fruit, there are 
days when the pale moon shows itself near the clear 
bright sun ; — and it is given to the soul of man to feel 
love and hatred, both at the same time, and to direct 
both to the same end. 

Nefert’s tears fell as dew, her sobs as manna on 
the soul of Paaker, which hungered and thirsted for 
revenge. Her pain was joy to him, and yet the sight 
of her beauty filled him with passion, his gaze lingered 
spell-bound on her graceful form ; he would have given 
all the bliss of heaven once, only once, to hold her in 
his arms — once, only once, to hear a word of love from 
her lips. 

After some minutes Nefert’s tears grew less violent. 
With a weary, almost indifferent gaze she looked at 
the Mohar, still standing before her, and said in a soft 
tone of entreaty: 

*‘My tongue is parched, fetch me a little water.” 

^‘The princess may come out at any moment,” re- 
plied Paaker. 

“But I am fainting,” said Nefert, and began again 
to cry gently. 

Paaker shrugged his shoulders, and went farther 
into the valley, which he knew as well as his father’s 
house; for in it was the tomb of his mother’s ancestors, 
in which, as a boy, he had put up prayers at every full 
and new moon, and laid gifts on the altar. 

The hut of the paraschites was j)rohil>ited to him, 
but he knew that scarcely a hundred paces from the. 
spot where Nefert was sitting, lived an old woman of 
7 


90 


UARDA. 


evil repute, in whose hole in the rock he could not 
fail to find a drink of water. 

He hastened forward, half intoxicated with all he 
had seen and felt within the last few minutes. 

The door, which at night closed the cave against 
the intrusions of the plunder-seeking jackals, was wide 
open, and the old woman sat outside under a ragged 
piece of brown sail-cloth, fastened at one end to the 
rock and at the other to two posts of rough wood. 
She was sorting a heap of dark and light-colored 
roots, which lay in her lap. Near her was a wheel, 
which turned in a high wooden fork. A wryneck 
made fast to it by a little chain, and by springing from 
spoke to spoke kept it in continual motion.* A large 
black cat crouched beside her, and smelt at some 
ravens’ and owls’ heads, from which the eyes had not 
long since been extracted. 

Two sparrow-hawks sat huddled up over the door 
of the cave, out of which came the sharp odor of 
burning juniper-berries; this was intended to render 
the various emanations rising from the different strange 
substances, which were collected and preserved there, 
innocuous. 

As Paaker approached the cavern the old woman 
called out to some one within : 

“ Is the wax cooking ?” 

An unintelligible murmur was heard in answer. 

‘‘ Then throw in the ape’s eyes,** and the ibis- 
feathers, and the scraps of linen with the black signs 
on them. Stir it all a little; now put out the fire. 

* From Theocritus* idyl : The Sorceress. 

** The sentences and mediums employed by the witches, according to 
papyrus-rolls which remain. I have availed myself of the Magic papyrus of 
Harris, and of two in tlie Berlin collection, one of which is in Greek. 


UARDA. 


91 


Take the jug and fetch some water — make haste, here 
comes a stranger.” 

A sooty -black negro woman, with a piece of tom 
colorless stuff hanging round her hips, set a large 
clay-jar on her grey woolly matted hair, and without 
looking at him, went past Paaker, who was now close 
to the cave. 

The old woman, a tall figure bent with years, with 
a sharply-cut and wrinkled face, that might once have 
been handsome, made her preparations for receiving 
the visitor by tying a gaudy kerchief over her head, 
fastening her blue cotton garment round her throat, 
and flinging a fibre mat over the birds’ heads. 

Paaker called out to her, but she feigned to be 
deaf and not to hear his voice. Only when he stood 
quite close to her, did she raise her shrewd, twinkling 
eyes, and cry out : 

“A lucky day! a white day that brings a noble 
guest and high honor.” 

Get up,” commanded Paaker, not giving her any 
greeting, but throwing a silver ring * among the roots 
that lay in her lap, “ and give me in exchange for good 
money some water in a clean vessel.” 

“ Fine pure silver,” said the old woman, while she 
held the ring, which she had quickly picked out from 
the roots, close to her eyes ; “ it is too much for mere 
water, and too little for my good liquors.” 

“ Don’t chatter, hussy, but make haste,” cried 
Paaker, taking another ring from his money-bag and 
throwing it into her lap. 

“ Thou hast an open hand,” said the old woman, 

* The Egyptians had no coins before Alexander and the Ptolemies, but 
used metals for exchange, usually in the form of rings. 


92 


UARDA. 


speaking in the dialect of the upper classei-;; “many 
doors must be open to thee, for money is a pass-key 
that turns any lock. Would’st thou have water for 
thy good money? Shall it protect thee against noxious 
beasts? — shall it help thee to reach down a star? Shall 
it guide thee to secret paths? — It is thy duty to lead 
the way. Shall it make heat cold, or cold warm? 
Shall it give thee the power of reading hearts, or .shall 
it beget beautiful dreams? Wilt thou drink of the 
water of knowledge and see whether thy friend or 
thine enemy — ha! if thine enemy shall die? Would’st 
thou a drink to strengthen thy memory ? Shall the water 
make* thee invisible? or remove the sixth toe from thy 
left foot?” 

“You know me?” asked Paaker. 

“How should I?” said the old woman, “but my 
eyes are sharp, and I can prepare good waters for great 
and small.” 

“Mere babble!” exclaimed Paaker, impatiently 
clutching at the whip in his girdle; “make haste, for 
the lady for whom — ” 

“Dost thou want the water for a lady?” interrupted 
the old woman. “ Who would have thought it ? — old men 
certainly ask for my philters much oftener than young 
ones, — but I can serve thee.” 

With these words the old woman went into the 
cave, and soon returned with a thin cylindrical flask 
of alabaster in her hand. 

“This is the drink,” she said, giving the phial to 
Paaker. “ Pour half into water, and offer it to the lady. 
If it does not succeed at first, it is certain the second 
time. A child may drink the water and it will not 
hurt him, or if an old man takes it, it makes him 


T'ARr>A. 


93 


gay. Ah, T know tlie taste of it!” and she moistened 
her lips with the white fluid. “It can hurt no one, but 
I will take no more of it, or old Hekt will be tormented 
with love and longing for thee; and that would ill 
please the rich young lord, ha! ha! If the drink is in 
vain I am paid enough, if it takes effect thou shalt 
bring me three more gold rings; and thou wilt return, 
I know it well.” 

Paaker had listened motionless to the old woman, 
and siezed the flask eagerly, as if bidding defiance to 
some adversary; he put it in his money bag, threw a 
few more rings at the feet of the witch, and once more 
hastily demanded a bowl of Nile- water. 

“Is my lord in such a hurry?” muttered the old 
woman, once more going into the cave. “ He asks if I 
know him? him certainly I do? but the darling? who 
can it be hereabouts? perhaps little Uarda at the 
paraschites yonder. She is pretty enough; but she is 
lying on a mat, run over and dying. We must see 
what my lord means, He would have pleased me well 
enough, if I were young; but he will reach the goal, 
for he is resolute and spares no one.” 

While she muttered these and similar words, she 
filled a graceful cup of glazed earthenware with filtered 
Nile-water, which she poured out of a large porous 
clay jar, and laid a laurel leaf, on which was scratched 
two hearts linked together by seven strokes, on the 
surface of the limpid fluid. Then she stepped out 
into the air again. 

As Paaker took the vessel from her hand, and 
looked at the laurel leaf, she said: 

“This indeed binds hearts; three is the husband. 


94 


UAKDA. 


four is the wife, seven is the indivisible. Cliaach, 
chachach, charcbarachacha.”* 

The old woman sang this spell not without skill; 
but the Mohar appeared not to listen to her jargon. 
He descended carefully into the valley, and directed 
his steps to the resting place of the wife of Mena. 

By the side of a rock, which hid him from Nefert, 
he paused, set the cup on a flat block of stone, and 
drew the flask with the philter out of his girdle. 

His fingers trembled, but a thousand voices within 
seemed to surge up and cry — 

“Take it! — do it! — put in the drink! — now or never.” 

He felt like a solitary traveller, who finds on his 
road the last will of a relation whose possessions he 
had hoped for, but which disinherits him. Shall he 
surrender it to the judge, or shall he destroy it. 

Paaker was not merely outwardly devout; hitherto 
he had in everything intended to act according to the 
prescriptions of the religion of his fathers. Adultery 
was a heavy sin; — but had not he an older right to 
Nefert than the king’s charioteer? 

He who followed the black arts of magic, should, 
according to the law, be punished by death,** and the 
old woman had a bad name for her evil arts; but he 
had not sought her for the sake of the philter. Was 
it not possible that the Manes of his forefathers, that 
the Gods themselves, moved by his prayers and offer- 
ings, had put him in possession by an accident — which 
was almost a miracle — of the magic potion whose 
efficacy he never for an instant doubted? 

* This jargon Is found In a magic-papyrus at Berlin. 

*'* From the papyri Lee and Rollin. See also Birch Stir un papyrus ma 
pque. Revue arch6ologique, 1863. Chabas, Harris magic-papyrus. Deveria 
Papyr, judiciaire de Turin. 




95 


Paaker’s associates held him to be a man of quick 
decision, and, in fact, in difficult cases he could act 
with unusual rapidity, but what guided him in these 
cases, was not the swift-winged judgment of a prepared 
and well-schooled brain, but usually only resulted from 
the outcome of a play of question and answer. 

Amulets of the most various kinds hung round his 
neck, and from his girdle, all consecrated by priests, 
and of special sanctity or the highest efficacy. 

There was the lapis lazuli eye, which hung to his 
girdle by a gold chain; when he threw it on the 
ground, so as to lie on the earth, if its engraved side 
turned to heaven, and its smooth side lay on the 
ground, he said “yes;” in the other case, on the con- 
trary, “no.” In his purse lay always a statuette of 
the god Apheru,* who opened roads; this he threw 
down at cross-roads, and followed the direction which 
the pointed snout of the image indicated. He fre- 
quently called into council the seal-ring of his deceased 
father, an old family possession, which the chief 
priests of Abydos had laid upon the holiest of the 
fourteen graves of Osiris, and endowed with miraculous 
power.** It consisted of a gold ring with a broad signet, 
on which could be read the name of Thotmes III., who 
had long since been deified, and from whom Paaker’s 
ancestors had derived it. If it were desirable to 
consult the ring, the Mohar touched with the point of 
his bronze dagger the engraved sign of the name, 

* A particular form of Anubis — as was the jackal-headed local divinity of 
Lykopolis, the modern Sint. 

** Typhon cut the body of Osiris into fourteen pieces, and then strewed 
them in Egypt. When Isis found one of them she erected a monument to her 
husband. • In later times none of these was reckoned more holy than that of 
Abydos, whither also Egyptians of rank had their mummies conveyed to rest 
in the vicinity of Osiris. 


96 


UARDA. 


below which were represented three objects sacred to 
the Gods, and three that were, on the contrary, pro- 
fane. If he hit one of the former, he concluded that 
his father — who was gone to Osiris — concurred in his 
design; in the contrary case he was careful to postpone 
it. Often he pressed the ring to his heart, and awaited 
the first living creature that he might meet, regarding 
it as a messenger from his father; — if it came to him 
from the right hand as an encouragement, if from the 
left as a warning. 

By degrees he had reduced these questionings to 
a system. All that he found in nature he referred to 
himself and the current of his life. It was at once 
touching, and pitiful, to see how closely he lived with 
the Manes of his dead. His lively, but not exalted 
fancy, wherever he gave it play, presented to the eye 
of his soul the image of his father and of an elder 
brother who had died early, always in the same spot, 
and almost tangibly distinct. 

But he never conjured up the remembrance of the 
beloved dead in order to think of them in silent 
melancholy — that sweet blossom of the thorny wreath 
of sorrow; only for selfish ends. The appeal to the 
Manes of his father he had found especially efficacious 
in certain desires and difficulties; calling on the Manes 
of his brother was potent in certain others; and so he 
turned from one to the other with the precision of a 
carpenter, who rarely doubts whether he should give 
the preference to a hatchet or a saw. 

These doings he held to be well pleasing to the 
Gods, and as he was convinced that the spirits of his 
dead had, after their justification, passed into Osiris — 
that is to say, as atoms forming part of the great 


UARDA. 


97 


world-soul, at this time had a share in the direction 
of the universe — ^he sacrificed to them not only in the 
family catacomb, but also in the temples of the Necro- 
polis dedicated to the worship of ancestors, and with 
special preference in the House of Seti. 

He accepted advice, nay even blame, from Ameni 
and the other priests under his direction ; and so lived 
full of a virtuous pride in being one of the most 
zealous devotees in the land, and one of the most 
pleasing to the Gods, a belief on which his pastors 
never threw any doubt. 

Attended and guided at every step by supernatural 
powers, he wanted no friend and no confidant. In 
the field, as in Thebes, he stood apart, and passed 
among his comrades for a reserved man, rough and 
proud, but with a strong will. 

He had the power of calling up the image of his 
lost love with as much vividness as the forms of the 
dead, and indulged in this magic, not only through a 
hundred still nights, but in long rides and drives 
through silent wastes. 

Such visions were commonly followed by a vehe- 
ment and boiling overfiow of his hatred against the 
charioteer, and a whole series of fervent prayers for 
his destruction. 

When Paaker set the cup of water for Nefert on 
the fiat stone and felt for the philter, his soul was so 
full of desire that there was no room for hatred; still 
he could not altogether exclude the idea that he 
would commit a great crime by making use of a 
magic drink. Before pouring the fateful drops into 
the water, he would consult the oracle of the ring. 
The dagger touched none of the holy symbols of the 


98 


UARDA. 


inscription on the signet, and in other circumstances 
he would, without going any farther, have given up his 
project. 

But this time he unwillingly returned it to its 
sheath, pressed the gold ring to his heart, muttered the 
name of his brother in Osiris, and awaited the first 
living creature that might come towards him. 

He had not long to wait; from the mountain slope 
opposite to him rose, with heavy, slow wing-strokes, 
two light-colored vultures. 

In anxious suspense he followed their flight, as 
they rose, higher and higher. For a moment they 
poised motionless, borne up by the air, circled round 
each other, then wheeled to the left and vanished be- 
hind the mountains, denying him the fulfilment of his 
desire. 

He hastily grasped the phial to fling it from him, 
but the surging passion in his veins had deprived 
him of his self-control. Nefert’s image stood before him 
as if beckoning him; a mysterious power clenched his 
fingers close and yet closer round the phial, and with 
the same defiance which he showed to his associates, 
he poured half of the philter into the cup and ap- 
proached his victim. 

Nefert had meanwhile left her shady retreat and 
come towards him. 

She silently accepted the water he offered her, 
and drank it with delight, to the very dregs. 

“Thank you,” she said, when she had recovered 
breath after her eager draught. 

“That has done me good! How fresh and acid the 
water tastes; but your hand shakes, and you are heated 
by your quick run for me — poor man.” 


UARDA. 


99 


With these words she looked at him with a peculiar 
expressive glance of her large eyes, and gave him her 
right hand, which he pressed wildly to his lips. 

“That will do,” she said smiling; “here comes the 
princess with a priest, out of the hovel of the unclean. 
With what frightful words you terrified me just now. 
It is true I gave you just cause to be angry with me ; 
but now you are kind again — do you hear? — and will 
bring your mother again to see mine. Not a word. I 
shall see, whether cousin Paaker refuses me obedi- 
ence.” 

“She threatened him playfully with her finger, and 
then growing grave she added, with a look that pierced 
Paaker’s heart with pain, and yet with ecstasy, “Let us 
leave off quarrelling. It is so much better when people 
are kind to each other.” 

After these words she walked towards the house of 
the paraschites, while Paaker pressed his hands to his 
breast, and murmured; 

“The drink is working, and she will be mine. I 
thank ye — ye Immortals!” 

But this thanksgiving, which hitherto he had never 
failed to utter when any good fortune had befallen him, 
to-day died on his lips. Close before him he saw the 
goal of his desires; there, under his eyes, lay the magic 
spring longed for for years. A few steps farther, and he 
might slake at its copious stream his thirst both for 
love and for revenge. 

While he followed the wife of Mena, and replaced 
the phial carefully in his girdle, so as to lose no drop 
of the precious fluid which, according to the prescription 
of the old woman, he needed to use again, warning 
voices spoke in his breast, to which he usually listened 


lOO 


UARDA. 


as to a fatherly admonition; but at this moment he 
mocked at them, and even gave outward expression to 
the mood that ruled him — for he flung up his right hand 
like a drunken man, who turns away from the preacher 
of morality on his way to the wine-cask; and yet passion 
held him so closely ensnared, that the thought that he 
should live through the swift moments which would 
change him from an honest man into a criminal, hard- 
ly dawned, darkly on his soul. He had hitherto dared 
to indulge his desire for love and revenge in thought 
only, and had left it to the Gods to act for themselves; 
now he had taken his cause out of the hand of the 
Celestials, and gone into action without them, and in 
spite of them. 

The sorceress Hekt passed him; she wanted to see 
the woman for whom she had given him the philter. He 
perceived her and shuddered, but soon the old woman 
vanished among the rocks muttering. 

“ Look at the fellow with six toes. He makes himself 
comfortable with the heritage of Assa.” 

In the middle of the valley walked Nefert and the 
pioneer, with the princess Bent-Anat and Pentaur who 
accompanied her. 

When these two had come out of the hut of the 
paraschites, they stood opposite each other in silence. 

The royal maiden pressed her hand to her heart, 
and, like one who is thirsty, drank in the pure air of 
the mountain valley with deeply drawn breath; she felt 
as if released from some overwhelming burden, as if 
delivered from some frightful danger. 

At last she turned to her companion, who gazed 
earnestly at the ground. 

“What an hour!” she said, 


TJARDA. 


lOl 


Pentaiir’s tall figure did not move, but he bowed 
his head in assent, as if he were in a dream. 

Bent-Anat now saw him for the first time in full 
daylight; her large eyes rested on him with admiration, 
and she asked: 

“Art thou the priest, who yesterday, after my first 
visit to this house, so readily restored me to cleanness?’' 

“ I am he,” replied Pentaur. 

“ I recognized thy voice, and I am grateful to ,thee, 
for it was thou that didst strengthen my courage to 
follow the impulse of my heart, in spite of my spiritual 
guides, and to come here again. Thou wilt defend me 
if others blame me.” 

“I came here to pronounce thee unclean.” 

“Then thou hast changed thy mind?” asked Bent- 
Anat, and a smile of contempt curled her lips. 

“ I follow a high injunction, that commands us to 
keep the old institutions sacred. If touching a paras- 
chites, it is said, does not defile a princess, whom then 
can it defile? for whose garment is more spotless than 
hers ?” 

“But this is a good man with all his meanness,” 
interrupted Bent-Anat, “and in spite of the disgrace, 
which is the bread of life to him as honor is to us. 
May the nine great Gods forgive me! but he who is in 
there is loving, pious and brave, and pleases me — and 
thou, thou, who didst think yesterday to purge away the 
taint of his touch with a word — what prompts thee to- 
day to cast him with the lepers ?” 

“The admonition of an enlightened man, never to 
give up any link of the old institutions; because 
thereby the already weakened chain may be broken, 
and fall rattling to the ground.’ ’ 


162 


UAnT)A. 


“Then thou condemnest me to uncleanness for the 
sake of an old superstition, and of the populace, but 
not for my actions? Thou art silent? Answer me now, 
if thou art such a one as I took thee for, freely and 
sincerely; for it concerns the peace of my soul.” 

Pentaur breathed hard; and then from the depths 
of his soul, tormented by doubts, these deeply-felt 
words forced themselves as if wrung from him ; at first 
softly, but louder as he went on. 

“Thou dost compel me to say what I had better 
not even think; but rather will I sin against obedience 
than against truth, the pure daughter of the Sun, whose 
aspect, Bent-Anat, thou dost wear. Whether the paras- 
chites is unclean by birth or not, who am I that I 
should decide ? But to me this man appeared — as to 
thee — as one moved by the same pure and holy emo- 
tions as stir and bless me and mine, and thee and 
every soul born of woman; and I believe that the im- 
pressions of this hour have touched thy soul as well as 
mine, not to taint, but to purify. If I am wrong, may 
the many-named Gods forgive me. Whose breath lives 
and works in the paraschites as well as in thee and me, 
in Whom I believe, and to Whom I will ever address 
my humble songs, louder and more joyfully, as I learn 
that all that lives and breathes, that weeps and rejoices, 
is the image of their sublime nature, and born to equal 
joy and equal sorrow.” 

Pentaur had raised his eyes to heaven; now they 
met the proud and joyful radiance of the princess’ glance, 
while she frankly offered him her hand. He humbly 
kissed her robe, but she said : 

“Nay — not so. Lay thy hand in blessing on mine. 
Thou art a man and a true priest. Now I can be satis- 


UardA. 


163 


fled to be regarded as unclean, for my father also de- 
sires that, by us especially, the institutions of the past 
that have so long continued should be respected, for 
the sake of the people. Let us pray in common to the 
Gods, that these poor people may be released from the 
old ban. How beautiful the world might be, if men 
would but let man remain what the Celestials have 
made him. But Paaker and poor Nefert are waiting in 
the scorching sun — come, follow me.” 

She went forward, but after a few steps she turned 
round to him, and asked: 

“What is thy name?” 

• “ Pentaur.” 

“ Thou then art the poet of the House of Seti ? ” 

“They call me so.” 

Bent-Anat stood still a moment, gazing full at him 
as at a kinsman whom we meet for the first time face 
to face, and said: 

“The Gods have given thee great gifts, for thy 
glance reaches farther and pierces deeper than that of 
other men; and thou canst say in words what we can 
only feel — I follow thee willingly!” 

Pentaur blushed like a boy, and said, while Paaker 
and Nefert came nearer to them: 

“Till to-day life lay before me as if in twilight; but 
this moment shows it me in another light. I have seen 
its deepest shadows; and,” he added in a low tone 
“how glorious its light can be.” 


104 


UARDA. 


• CHAPTER VII. 

An hour later, Bent-Anat and her train of followers 
stood before the gate of the House of Seti. 

Swift as a ball thrown from a man’s hand, a runner 
had sprung forward and hurried on to announce the 
approach of the princess to the chief priest. She stood 
alone in her chariot, in advance of all her companions, 
for Pentaur had found a place with Paaker. At the 
gate of the temple they were met by the head of the 
haruspices. 

The great doors of the pylon were wide open, and 
afforded a view into the forecourt of the sanctuary, 
paved with polished squares of stone, and surrounded 
on three sides with colonnades. The walls and archi- 
traves, the pillars and the fluted cornice, which slightly 
curved in over the court, were gorgeous with many- 
colored figures and painted decorations. In the middle 
stood a great sacrificial altar, on which burned logs of 
cedar wood, whilst fragrant balls of Kyphi* were con- 
sumed by the flames, filling the wide space with their 
heavy perfume. Around, in semi-circular array, stood 
more than a hundred white-robed priests, who all turned 
to face the approaching princess, and sang heart-rend- 
ing songs of lamentation. 

Many of the inhabitants of the Necropolis had col- 
lected on either side of the lines of sphinxes, between 
which the princess drove up to the Sanctuary. But 

* Kjrphi was a celebrated Egyptian incense. Recipes for its preparation 
have been preserved in the papyrus of Ebers, in the laboratories of the temples, 
and elsewhere. Parthey had three different varieties prepared by the chemist, 
L. Voigt, in Berlin. Kyphi after the formula of Dio.skondes was the best. It 
consisted of rosin, wine, rad, galangae, juniper berries, the root of the 
aromatic rush, asphalte, mastic, myrrh. Burgundy grapes, and honey. 


tJARDA. 


105 

none asked what these songs of lamentation might sig- 
nify, for about this sacred place lamentation and mystery 
for ever lingered. “Hail to the child of Rameses!” 
“All hail to the daughter of the Sun!” rang from a 
thousand throats; and the assembled multitude bowed 
almost to the earth at the approach of the royal 
maiden. 

At the pylon, the princess descended from her 
chariot, and preceded by the chief of the haruspices, 
who had gravely and silently greeted her, passed on to 
the door of the temple. But as she prepared to cross 
the forecourt, suddenly, without warning, the priests’ 
chant swelled to a terrible, almost thundering loudness, 
the clear, shrill voice of the Temple scholars rising in 
passionate lament, supported by the deep and threaten- 
ing roll of the basses. 

Bent-Anat started and checked her steps. Then 
she walked on again. 

But on the threshold of the door, Ameni, in full 
pontifical robes, stood before her in the way, his crosier 
extended as though to forbid her entrance. 

“The advent of the daughter of Rameses in her 
purity,” he cried in loud and passionate tones, “augurs 
blessing to this sanctuary; but this abode of the Gods 
closes its portals on the unclean, be they slaves or 
princes. In the name of the Immortals, from whom thou 
art descended, I ask thee, Bent-Anat, art thou clean, 
or hast thou, through the touch of the unclean, defiled 
thyself and contaminated thy royal hand?” 

Deep scarlet flushed the maiden’s cheeks, there was 
a rushing sound in her ears as of a stormy sea surging 
close beside her, and her bosom rose and fell in pas- 
sionate emotion. The kingly blood in her veins boiled 
8 


io6 uardA. 

wildly; she felt that an unworthy part had been assigned 
to her in a carefully-premeditated scene; she forgot 
her resolution to accuse herself of uncleanness, and 
already her lips were parted in vehement protest against 
the priestly assumj^tion that so deeply stirred her to 
rebellion, when Ameni, who placed himself directly 
in front of the Princess, raised his eyes, and turned 
them full upon her with all the depths of their indwell- 
ing earnestness. 

The words died away, and Bent-Anat stood silent, 
but she endured the gaze, and returned it })roudly and 
defiantly. 

The blue veins started in Ameni’s forehead; yet he 
repressed the resentment which was gathering like 
thunder clouds in his soul, and said, with a voice that 
gradually deviated more and more from its usual mod- 
eration : 

“ For the second time the Gods demand through 
me, their representative: Hast thou entered this holy 
place in order that the Celestials may purge thee of 
the defilement that stains thy body and soul?" 

“ My father will communicate the answer to thee,” 
replied Bent-Anat shortly and proudly. 

“Not to me," returned Ameni, “but to the Gods, in 
whose name I now command thee to quit this sanctu- 
ary, which is defiled by thy presence." 

Bent-Anat’s whole form quivered. “ I will go," she 
said with sullen dignity. 

She turned to recross the gateway of the Pylon. 
At the first step her glance met the eye of the poet. 

As one to whom it is vouchsafed to stand and gaze 
at some great j^rodigy, so Pentaur had stood opposite 
the royal maiden, uneasy and yet fascinated, agitated, 


UARDA. 


107 


yet with secretly uplifted soul. Her deed seemed to 
him of boundless audacity, and yet one suited to her 
true and noble nature. By her side, Ameni, his revered 
and admired master, sank into insignificance; and when 
she turned to leave the temple, his hand was raised in- 
deed to hold her back, but as his glance met hers, his 
hand refused its office, and sought instead to still the 
throbbing of his overflowing heart. 

The experienced priest, meanwhile, read the features 
of these two guileless beings like an open book. A 
quickly-formed tie, he felt, linked their souls, and the 
look which he saw them exchange startled him. The 
rebellious princess had glanced at the poet as though 
claiming approbation for her triumph, and Pentaur’s 
eyes had responded to the appeal. 

One instant Ameni paused. Then he cried : ‘‘ Bent- 
Anat!” 

I'he princess turned to the priest, and looked at 
him gravely and enquiringly. 

Ameni took a step forward, and stood between her 
and the poet. 

“Thou wouldst challenge the Gods to combat,” he 
said sternly. “That is bold; but such daring it seems 
to me has grown up in thee because thou canst count 
on an ally, who stan4s scarcely farther from the Im- 
mortals than I myself. Hear this: — to thee, the mis- 
guided child, much may be forgiven. But a servant of 
the Divinity,” and with these words he turned a threaten- 
ing glance on Pentaur — “a priest, who in the war of 
free-will against law becomes a deserter, who forgets 
his duty and In's oath — he will not long stand beside 
thee to support thee, for he — even though every God 


UARDA. 


lo8 

had blessed him with the richest gifts — he is damned. 
We drive him from among us, we curse him, we — 

At these words Bent-Anat looked now at Ameni, 
trembling with excitement, now at Pentaur standing 
opposite to her. Her face was red and white by turns, 
as light and shade chase each other on the ground when 
at noon-day a palm-grove is stirred by a storm. 

The poet took a step towards her. 

She felt that if he spoke it would be to defend all 
that she had done, and to ruin himself. A deep 
sympathy, a nameless anguish seized her soul, and 
before Pentaur could open his lips, she had sunk slowly 
down before Ameni, saying in low tones: 

“ I have sinned and defiled myself ; thou hast said 
it — as Pentaur said it by the hut of the paraschites. 
Restore me to cleanness, Ameni, for I am unclean.” 

Ifike a flame th^t is crushed out by a hand, so the 
fire in the high-priest’s eye was extinguished. Gracious- 
ly, almost lovingly, he looked down on the princess, 
blessed her and conducted her before the holy of holies, 
there had clouds of incense wafted round her, anointed 
her with the nine holy oils, and commanded her to re- 
turn to the royal castle. 

Yet, said he, her guilt was not expiated; she should 
shortly learn by what prayers and exercises she might 
attain once more to perfect purity before the Gods, 
of whom he purposed to enquire in the holy place. 

During all these ceremonies the priests stationed in 
the forecourt continued their lamentations. 

The people standing before the temple listened to the 
priest’s chant, and interrupted it from time to time with 
ringing cries of wailing, for already a dark rumor of 


UARDA. 


109 


what was going on within had spread among the mul- 
titude. 

The sun was going down. The visitors to the 
Necropolis must soon be leaving it, and Bent-Anat, for 
whose appearance the people impatiently waited, would 
not show herself. One and another said the princess 
had been cursed, because she had taken remedies to 
the fair and injured Uarda, who was known to many 
of them. 

Among the curious who had flocked together were 
many embalmers, laborers, and humble folk, who lived 
in the Necropolis. The mutinous and refractory tem- 
per of the Egyptians, which brought such heavy suffer- 
ing on them under their later foreign rulers, was 
aroused, and rising with every minute. They reviled 
the pride of the priests, and their senseless, worthless, 
institutions. A drunken soldier, who soon reeled back 
into the tavern which he had but just left, distinguished 
himself as ringleader, and was the first to pick up a 
heavy stone to fling at the huge brass-plated temple- 
gates. A few boys followed his example with shouts, 
and law-abiding men even, urged by the clamor of 
fanatical women, let themselves be led away to stone- 
flinging and words of abuse. 

Within the House of Seti the priests’ chant went 
on uninterruptedly; but at last, when the noise of the 
crowd grew louder, the great gate was thrown open, 
and with a solemn step Ameni, in full robes, and fol- 
lowed by twenty pastophori * who bore images of the 
Gods and holy symbols on their shoulders — Ameni 
walked into the midst of the crowd. 

All were silent. 


An order of priests. 


no 


UARDA. 


1 


“Wherefore do you disturb our worship ?” he asked 
loudly and calmly. 

A roar of confused cries answered him, in which 
the frequently repeated name of Bent-Anat could alone 
be distinguished. ' 

Ameni preserved his immoveable composure, and, 
raising his crozier, he cried — 

“Make way for the daughter of Rameses, who 
sought and has found purification from the Gods, who 
behold the guilt of the highest as of the lowest among 
you. They reward the pious, but they punish the 
offender. Kneel down and let us pray that they may 
forgive you, and bless both you and your children.” 

Ameni took the holy Sistrum* from one of the at- 
tendant pastophori, and held it on high; the priests 
behind him raised a solemn hymn, and the crowd sank 
on their knees ; nor did they move till the chant ceased 
and the high-priest again cried out : 

“The Immortals bless you by me their servant. 
Leave this spot and make way for the daughter of 
Rameses.” 

With these words he withdrew into the temple, 
and the patrol, without meeting with any opposition, 
cleared the road guarded by Sphinxes which led to 
the Nile. 

As Bent-Anat mounted her chariot Ameni said ; 

“Thou art the child of kings. The house of thy 

* A rattling metal instrument used by the Egyptians in the semce of the 
Gods. Many specimens are extant in Museums. Plutarch describes it cor- 
rectly, thus : “The Sistrum is rounded above, .and the loop holds the four bars 
which are shaken. On the bend of the Sistrum they often set the head of a 
cat with a human face ; below the four little bars, on one side is the face of 
Isis, on the other that of Nephthys.” The cat head is seen on a bronze Sistrum 
in the Berlin M'.iseu n; on other examples we find at the upper end of the 
handle the usual mask of Hathor. In the sanctuary of this Goddess at Dendera 
the image of the holy Sistrum was thrown into great prominence, ^ 


bARDA. 


1 1 1 


father rests on the shoulders of the people. Loosen 
the old laws which hold them subject, and the people 
will conduct themselves like these fools.” 

Ameni retired. Bent-Anat slowly arranged the reins 
in her hand, her eyes resting the wnile on the poet, 
who, leaning against a door-post, gazed at her in 
beatitude. She let her whip fall to the ground, that he 
might pick it up and restore it to her, but he did not 
observe it. A runner sprang forward and handed it 
to the princess, whose horses started off, tossing them- 
selves and neighing. 

Pentaur remained as if spell -bound, standing by 
the pillar, till the rattle of the departing wheels on 
the flag-way of the Avenue of Sphinxes had altogether 
died away, and the reflection of the glowing sunset 
painted the eastern hills with soft and rosy hues. 

The far-sounding clang of a brass gong roused the 
poet from his ecstasy. It was the tomtom calling him 
to duty, to the lecture on rhetoric which at this hour 
he had to deliver to the young priests. He laid his 
left hand to his heart, and pressed his right hand to 
his forehead, as if to collect in its grasp his wandering 
thoughts ; then silently and mechanically he went to- 
wards the open court in which his disciples awaited 
him. But instead of, as usual, considering on the way 
the subject he was to treat, his spirit and heart were 
occupied with the occurrences of the last few hours. 
One image reigned supreme in his imagination, filling it 
with delight — it was that of the fairest woman, who, 
radiant in her royal dignity and trembling with pride, 
had thrown herself in the dust for his sake. He felt as 
if her action had invested her whole being with a new 
and princely worth, as if her glance had brought light 


112 


UARDA, 


to his inmost soul, he seemed to breathe a freer air, 
to be borne onward on winged feet. 

In such a mood he appeared before his hearers. 

When he found himself confronting all the the well- 
known faces, he remembered what it was he was 
called upon to do. He supported himself against the 
wall of the court, and opened the papyrus-roll handed 
to him by his favorite pupil, the young Anana. It 
was the book which twenty-four hours ago he had 
promised to begin upon. He looked now upon the 
characters that covered it, and felt that he was unable 
to read a word. 

With a powerful effort he collected himself, and 
looking upwards tried to find the thread he had cut 
at the end of yesterday’s lecture, and intended to re- 
sume to-day ; but between yesterday and to-day, as it 
seemed to him, lay a vast sea whose roaring surges 
stunned his memory and powers of thought. 

His scholars, squatting cross-legged on reed mats 
before him, gazed in astonishment on their silent 
master who was usually so ready of speech, and looked 
enquiringly at each other. A young priest whispered 
to his neighbor, “He is praying — ” and Anana 
noticed with silent anxiety the strong hand of his 
teacher clutching the manuscript so tightly that the 
slight material of which it consisted threatened to 
split. 

At last Pentaur looked down; he had found a 
subject. While he was looking upwards his gaze fell 
on the opposite wall, and the painted name of the 
king with the accompanying title “the good God” met 
his eye. Starting from these words he put this question 


UARDA. 


II3 

to his hearers, “ How do we apprehend the Goodness 
of the Divinity ? ” 

He challenged one priest after another to treat this 
subject as if he were standing before his future con- 
gregation. 

Several disciples rose, and spoke with more or less 
truth and feeling. At last it came to Anana’s turn, 
who, in well-chosen words, praised the purpose-full 
beauty of animate and inanimate creation, in which 
the goodness of Amon,* of Ra,** and Ptah,*** as well 
as of the other Gods, finds expression. 

Pentaur listened to the youth with folded arms, 
now looking at him enquiringly, now adding approba- 
tion. Then taking up the thread of the discourse 
when it was ended, he began himself to speak. 

Like obedient falcons at the call of the falconer. 


* Amon, that is to say, “ the hidden one.” He was the God of Thebes, which 
was under his aegis, and after the Hyksos were expelled from the Nile-valley, 
he was united with Ra of Heliopolis and endowed with the attributes of all the 
remaining Gods. His nature was more and more spiritualized, till in the esoteric 
philosophy of the time of the Rameses he is compared to the All-filiine and All- 
guiding intelligence. He is “ the hu.sband of his mother, his own father, and 
his own son,” As the living Osiris, he is the soul and spirit of all creation, 
which first enters on a higher order of existence through him. He was ‘‘benev. 
olent,” “beautiful,” “without equal,” and.afso was called the “annihilator 
of evil” — by which man expressed his reverence for the hidden power which 
raises the good, and overthrows the wicked. He is recognized by the tall 
double plume on his crown. He was represented with a ram’s head as 
Amon Chnem. 

** Ra, originally the Sun-God; later his name was introduced into the 
pantheistic mystic philosophy for that of the God who is the Universe. 

*** Ptah is the Greek Hephaistos, the oldest of the Gods, the great maker 
of the material for the creation, the “first beginner,” by whose side the seven 
Chnemu stand, as architects, to help him, and who was named “the lord of 
truth,” because the laws and conditions of being proceeded from him. He 
created also the germ of light, he stood therefore at the head of the solar Gods, 
and was called the creator of ice, from which, when he had cleft it, the sun 
and the moon came forth. Hence his name “the opener.” Memphis was the 
centre of his worship. Apis his sacred animal. In the mysteries of the under- 
world, and of Immortality he appears usually under the name of Ptah Sokar 
Osiris, who grants to the setting sun the power to rise again, as to the dead, 
the power of resurrection. 


t 


114 


UARHA. 


thoughts rushed down into his mind, and the divine 
passion awakened in .his breast glowed and shone 
through his inspired language that soared every mo- 
ment on freer and stronger wings. Melting into pathos, 
exulting in rapture, he praised the splendor ot nature; 
and the words flowed from his lips like a limpid 
crystal-clear stream as he glorified the eternal order of 
things, and the incomprehensible wisdom and care of 
the Creator — the One, who is one alone, and great and 
without equal. 

“So incomparable,” he said in conclusion, “is the 
home which God has given us. All that He — the One 
— has created is penetrated with His own essence, and 
bears witness to His Goodness. He who knows how to 
find Him sees Him everywhere, and lives at every in- 
stant in the enjoyment of His glory. Seek Him, and 
when ye have found Him fall down and sing praises 
before Him. But praise the Highest, not only in grati- 
tude for the splendor of that which he has created, 
but for having given us the capacity for delight in his 
work. Ascend the mountain peaks and look on the 
distant country, worship when the sunset glows with 
rubies, and the dawn with roses, go out in the night- 
time, and look at the stars as they travel in eternal, 
unerring, immeasurable, and endless circles on silver 
barks through the blue vault of heaven, stand by the 
cradle of the child, by the buds of the flowers, and 
see how the mother bends over the one, and the 
bright dew-drops fall on the other. But would you 
know where the stream of divine goodness is most 
freely poured out, where the grace of the Creator be- 
stows the richest gifts, and where His holiest altars 
are prepared? In your own heart; so long as it is 


TJARDA. 


pure and full of love. In such a heart, nature is 
reflected as in a magic mirror, on whose surface the 
Beautiful shines in three-fold beauty. There the eye 
can reach far away over stream, and meadow, and hill, 
and take in the whole circle of the earth; there the 
morning and evening-red shine, not like roses and 
rubies, but like the very cheeks of the Goddess of 
Beauty; there the stars circle on, not in silence, but 
with the mighty voices of the pure eternal harmonies 
of heaven; there the child smiles like an infant-god, 
and the bud unfolds to magic flowers; finally, there 
thankfulness grows broader and devotion grows deeper, 
and we throw ourselves into the arms of a God, who 
— as I imagine his glory — is a God to whom the 
sublime nine great Gods pray as miserable and help- 
less suppliants.” 

I'he tomtom which announced the end of the hour 
interrupted him. 

Pentaur ceased speaking with a deep sigh, and for 
a minute not a scholar moved. 

At last the poet laid the papyrus roll out of his 
hand, wiped the sweat from his hot brow, and walked 
slowly towards the gate of the court, which led into 
the sacred grove of the temple. He had hardly crossed 
the threshold when he felt a hand laid upon his 
shoulder. 

He looked round. Behind him stood Ameni. 

“You fascinated your hearers, my friend,” said the 
high-priest, coldly; “it is a pity that only the harp was 
wanting.” 

Ameni’s words fell on the agitated spirit of the 
poet like ice on the breast of a man in fever. He 
knew this tone in his master’s voice, for thus he was 


i6 


UARDA. 


accustomed to reprove bad scholars and erring priests; 
but to him he had never yet so spoken. 

“It certainly would seem,” continued the high- 
priest, bitterly, “as if in your intoxication you had 
forgotten what it becomes the teacher to utter in the 
lecture-hall. Only a few weeks since you swore on my 
hands to guard the mysteries, and this day you have 
offered the great secret of the Unnameable one, the 
most sacred posession of the initiated, like some cheap 
ware in the open market.” 

“Thou cuttest with knives,” said Pentaur. 

“May they prove sharp, and extirpate the un- 
developed canker, the rank weed from your soul,” cried 
the high-priest. “You are young, too young; not like 
the tender fruit-tree that lets itself be trained aright, 
and brought to perfection, but like the green fruit on 
the ground, which will turn to poison for the children 
who pick it up— yea even though it fall from a sacred 
tree. Gagabu and I received you among us, against 
the opinion of the majority of the initiated. We 
gainsaid all those who doubted your ripeness because 
of your youth; and you swore to me, gratefully and 
enthusiastically, to guard the mysteries and the law. 
To-day for the first time I set you on the battle-field 
of life beyond the peaceful shelter of the schools. And 
how have you defended the standard that it was in- 
cumbent on you to uphold and maintain ? ” 

“ I did that which seemed to me to be right and 
true,” answered Pentaur deeply moved. 

“Right is the same for you as for us — what the 
law prescribes; and what is truth?” 

“None has lifted her veil,” said Pentaur, “but my 
soul is the offspring of the soul-fijled body of the All; 


UARDA. 


117 

a portion of the infallible spirit of the Divinity stirs in 
my breast, and if it shows itself potent in me — ” 

“How easily we may mistake the flattering voice 
of self-love for that of the Divinity!” 

“ Cannot the Divinity which works and speaks in 
me — as in thee — as in each of us — recognize himself 
and his own voice?” 

“ If the crowd were to hear you,” Ameni interrupted 
him, “each would set himself on his little throne, 
would proclaim the voice of the god within him as 
his guide, tear the law to shreds, and let the frag- 
ments fly to the desert on the east wind.” 

“I am one of the elect whom thou thyself hast 
taught to seek and to find the One. The light which 
I gaze on and am blest, would strike the crowd — I do 
not deny it — with blindness — ” 

“And nevertheless you blind our disciples with the 
dangerous glare — ” 

“I am educating them for future sages.” 

“And that with the hot overflow of a heart in- 
toxicated with love!” 

“Ameni!” 

“I stand before you, uninvited, as your teacher, 
who reproves you out of the law, which always 
and everywhere is wiser than the individual, whose 
‘defender’ the king — among his highest titles — boasts 
of being, and to which the sage bows as much as the 
common man whom we bring up to blind belief — I 
stand before you as your father, who has loved you 
from a child, and expected from none of his disciples 
more than from you; and who \\ill therefore neither 
lose you nor abandon the hope he has set upon 
you~ 


iiS 


UARDA. 


“ Make ready to leave our quiet house early to- 
morrow morning. You have forfeited your office of 
teacher. You shall now go into the school of life, and 
make yourself fit for the honored rank of the initiated 
which, by my error, was bestowed on you too soon. 
You must leave your scholars without any leave-tak- 
ing, however hard it may appear to you. After the 
star of Sothis* has risen come for your instructions. 
You must in these next months try to lead the priest- 
hood in the temple of Hatasu, and in that post to 
win back my confidence which you have thrown away. 
No remonstrance; to-night you will receive my bless- 
ing, and our authority — you must greet the rising sun 
from the terrace of the new scene of your labors. 
May the Unnameable stamp the law upon your soul!” 


Ameni returned to his room. 

He walked restlessly to and fro. 

On a little table lay a mirror; he looked into the 
clear metal pane, and laid it back in its place again, 
as if he had seen some strange and displeasing coun- 
tenance. 

The events of the last few hours had moved him 
deeply, and shaken his confidence in his unerring judg- 
ment of men and things. 

The priests on the other bank of the Nile were 
Bent-Anat’s counsellors, and he had heard the princess 
spoken of as a devout and gifted maiden. Her in- 
cautious breach of the sacred institutions had seemed 


* The holy star of Isis, Sirius or the dog star, whose course in the time of 
(he Pharaohs coincided with the exact Solar year, and served at a very early 
date as a foimdation for the reckoning of time among the Egyptians. 


UARDA. 


1 19 

to him to offer a welcome opportunity for humiliating 
a member of the royal family. 

Now he told himself that he had undervalued this 
young creature, that he had behaved clumsily, perhaps 
foolishly, to her; for he did not for a moment conceal 
from himself that her sudden change of demeanor 
resulted much more from the warm flow of her sym- 
pathy, or perhaps of her affection, than from any 
recognition of her guilt-, and he could not utilize her 
transgression with safety to himself, unless she felt her- 
self guilty. 

Nor was he of so great a nature as to be wholly 
free from vanity, and his vanity had been deeply 
wounded by the haughty resistance of the princess. 

When he commanded Pentaur to meet the princess 
with words of reproof, he had hoped to awaken his 
ambition through the proud sense of power over the 
mighty ones of the earth. 

And now? 

How had his gifted admirer, the most hopeful of 
all his disciples, stood the test. 

The one ideal of his life, the unlimited dominion 
of the priestly idea over the minds of men, and of 
the priesthood over the king himself, had hitherto 
remained unintelligible to this singular young man. 

He must learn to understand it. 

“ Here, as the least among a hundred who are his 
superiors, all the powers of resistance of his soaring 
soul have been roused,” said Ameni to himself “In 
the temple of Hatasu he will have to rule over the 
inferior orders of slaughterers of victims and incense- 
burners; and, by requiring obedience, will learn to 


120 


UARDA. 


estimate the necessity of it. The rebel, to whom a 
throne devolves, becomes a tyrant!” 

“Pentuar’s poet soul,” so he continued to reflect 
“has quickly yielded itself a prisoner to the charm of 
Bent-Anat; and what woman could resist this highly- 
favored being, who is radiant in beauty as Ra-Har- 
machis, and from whose lips flows speech as sweet as 
Techuti’s.* They ought never to meet again, for no tie 
must bind him to the house of Rameses.” 

Again he paced to and fro, and murmured : 

“How is this? Two of my disciples have towered 
above their fellows, in genius and gifts, like palm trees 
above their undergrowth. I brought them up to suc- 
ceed me, to inherit my labors and my hopes. 

“Mesu** fell away; and Pentaur may follow him. 

“ Must my aim be an unworthy one because it does 
not attract the noblest? Not so. Each feels himself 
made of better stuff than his companions in destiny, 
constitutes his own law, and fears to see the great ex- 
pended in trifles; but I think otherwise; like a brook 
of ferruginous water from Lebanon, I mix with the 
great stream, and tinge it with my color.” 

Thinking thus Ameni stood still. 

Then he called to one of the so-called “holy fathers,” 
his private secretary, and said : 

“ Draw up at once a document, to be sent to all the 
priests’-colleges in the land. Inform them that the 
daughter of Rameses has lapsed seriously from the law, 
and defiled herself, and direct that public — you hear 
me public — prayers shall be put up for her purification 

* Thoth-Hermes. 

** Mesu is the Egyptian name of Moses, whom we may consider as a con- 
temporary of Rameses, under whose successor the exodus of the Jews from 
Egypt took place. 


UARDA. 


I2I 


in every temple. Lay the letter before me to be signed 
within an hour. But no! Give me your reed and 
palette ; I will myself draw up the instructions.” 

The “ holy father ” gave him writing materials, and 
retired into the background. Ameni muttered : “ The 

King will do us some unheard-of violence ! Well, this 
writing may be the first arrow in opposition to his lance.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The moon was risen over the city of the living that 
lay opposite the Necropolis of Thebes. 

The evening song had died away in the temples, 
that stood about a mile from the Nile, connected with 
each other by avenues of sphinxes and pylons ; but in 
the streets of the city life seemed only just really awake. 

The coolness, which had succeeded the heat of the 
summer day, tempted the citizens out into the air, in 
front of their doors or on the roofs and turrets of their 
nouses ; or at the tavern-tables, where they listened to 
the tales of the story-tellers while they refreshed them 
selves with beer, wine, and the sweet juice of fhiits. 
Many simple folks squatted in circular groups on the 
ground, and joined in the burden of songs which were led 
by an appointed singer, to the sound of a tabor and flute. 

To the south of the temple of Amon stood the 
king’s palace, and near it, in more or less extensive 
gardens, rose the houses of the magnates of the king- 
dom, among which, one was distinguished by it splendor 
and extent. 

Paaker, the king’s pioneer, had caused it to be 
erected after the death of his father, in the place of the 


122 


UARDA. 


more homely dwelling of his ancestors, when he hoped 
to bring home his cousin, and install her as its mistress. 

A few yards further to the east was another stately 
though older and less splendid house, which Mena, 
the king’s charioteer, had inherited from his father, 
and which was inhabited by his wife Nefert and her 
mother Katuti, while he himself, in the distant Syrian 
land, shared the tent of the king, as being his body-guard. 

Before the door of each house stood servants bear- 
ing torches, and awaiting the long deferred return home 
of their masters. 

The gate, which gave admission to Paaker’s plot of 
ground through the wall which surrounded it, was 
disproportionately, almost ostentatiously, high and dec- 
orated with various paintings. On the right hand 
and on the left, two cedar-trunks were erected as masts 
to carry standards; he had had them felled for the 
purpose on Lebanon, and forwarded by ship to Pelu- 
sium on the north-east coast of Egypt. Thence they 
were conveyed by the Nile to Thebes. 

On passing through the gate one entered a wide, 
paved court-yard,* at the sides of which walks ex- 
tended, closed in at the back, and with roofs supported 
on slender painted wooden columns. Here stood the 
pioneer’s horses and chariots, here dwelt his slaves, and 
here the necessary store of produce for the month’s re- 
quirements was kept. 

* The Mohar’s heritage is described from the beautiful pictures of gardens 
and houses in the tombs of Tel el Amama (represented in Lepsius’ monuments of 
Egypt.) To own a garden was considered particularly lucky. In the Papyrus 
IV. from Bulag, published by Mariette, the author desires to show that every 
earthly possession leads to satiety, and chooses as an example the house with a 
garden. You have, he says, a well-watered piece of ground. You have sur- 
rounded your garden with hedges, and planted sycamores, arranging them on 
the land about your house. You can fill your hand with all the flower your eye% 
behold, yet it will happen that you will finally weary of them. 


UARDA. 


123 


In the farther wall of this store-court was a very- 
high doorway, that led into a large garden with rows 
of well-tended trees and trellised vines, clumps of 
shrubs, flowers, and beds of vegetables. Palms, syca- 
mores, and acacia-trees, figs, pomegranates, and jasmine 
throve here particularly well — for Paaker’s mother, Set- 
chem, superintended the labors of the gardeners; and 
in the large tank in the midst there was never any 
lack of water for watering the beds and the roots of 
the trees, as it was always supplied by two canals, 
into which wheels turned by oxen poured water day 
and night from the Nile-stream. 

On the right side of this plot of ground rose the 
one-storied dwelling house, its length stretching into 
distant perspective, as it consisted of a single row of 
living and bedrooms. Almost every room had its own 
door, that opened into a veranda supported by colored 
wooden columns, and which extended the whole length 
of the garden side of the house. This building was 
joined at a right angle by a row of store-rooms, in 
which the garden-produce in fruits and vegetables, the 
wine-jars, and the possessions of the house in woven 
stuffs, skins, leather, and other property were kept. 

In a chamber of strong masonry lay safely locked up 
the vast riches accumulated by Paaker’s father and by 
himself, in gold and silver rings, vessels and figures of 
beasts. Nor was there lack of bars of copper and of 
precious stones, particularly of lapis-lazuli and malachite. 

In the middle of the garden stood a handsomely 
decorated kiosk, and a chapel with images of the Gods ; 
in the background stood the statues of Paaker’s ancestors 
in the form of Osiris wrapped in mummy-cloths.* The 

* The justified dend became Osi’-is : that is to say, attained to the fullest 
union (Hcnosis) with the divinity. The Oiiris-myth has been testored in all 


124 


UARDA. 


faces, which were likenessesj alone distinguished these 
statues from each other. 

The left side of the store-yard was veiled in gloom, 
yet the moonlight revealed numerous dark figures clothed 
only with aprons, the slaves of the king’s pioneer, who 
squatted on the ground in groups of five or six, or lay 
near each other on thin mats of palm-bast, their hard beds. 

Not far from the gate, on the right side of the court, 
a few lamps lighted up a group of dusky men, the of- 
ficers of Paaker’s household, who wore short, shirt- 
shaped, white garments, and who sat on a carpet round 
a table hardly two feet high. They were eating their 
evening-meal, consisting of a roasted antelope, and large 
flat cakes of bread.- Slaves waited on them, and filled 
their earthen beakers with yellow beer. The steward 
cut up the great roast on the table, offered the intendant 
of the gardens a piece of antelope-leg, and said :* 

its parts from the literary remains of th^ Egyptians. Plutarch records it in de- 
tail. Omitting minor matters it is as follows. Isis and Osiris reigned blissful 
and benignant in the Nile valley ; Typhon (Seth) induced Osiris to lay himself 
in a chest, locked it with his 70 companions, and set it on the Nile, which carried 
it north, to the sea. It was cast on shore at Byblos. Isis sought it lamenting, 
found it, and brought it back to Egypt. While she was seeking for her son 
Horns, Typhon found the body, cut it into fourteen parts, and strewed them 
throughout the land. Horus having meanwhile grown up, fights with Typhon, 
and conquers him, and restores to his mother her husband, and to his father — 
who during his apparent death had continued to reign in the under-world — his 
earthly throne. This fanciful myth personified not only the cycle of the vegeta- 
tive life of the earth, but also the path of the sun, and the fate of the human soul. 
The procreative power of nature, and the overflow of the Nile come from drought, 
the light of the sun from darkness ; man passes through death to life, the prin- 
ciple of good comes from evil. Truth appears to be destroyed by Lies ; yet each 
triumphs in the spring (the time of the inundations) — in the morning — in the 
other world — or in the day of retribution — as Osiris conquered through Horus. 

* The Greeks and Romans report that the Egy’ptians were so addicted to 
satire and pungent witticisms, that they would hazard property and life to gratify 
their love of mockery. I'he scandalous pictures in the so-called kiosk of Medinet 
Habu, the caricatures in an indescribable papyrus at Turin, confirm these state- 
ments. 'I'here is a noteworthy passage in Flavius V opiscus, that compares the 
Egy ptians to the French, and which we think it advisable to quote here : 

“ Suntenim Aegyptii, ut satis nosti, uiri uentosi furibundi iactantes iniuriosi 
atque adeo uani liberi nouarum rerum usque ad cantilenas publicas cupientes 
uersificatores epigrammatarii mathematici haruspices medici. Flav. Vopiscus ed. 
Peter II. p. 208, c. 7.” 


UARDA. 


125 


“ My arms ache ; the mob of slaves get more and 
more dirty and refractory.” 

“ I notice it in the palm-trees,” said the gardener, 
“ you want so many cudgels that their crowns will soon 
be as bare as a moulting bird.” 

“We should do as the master does,” said the head- 
groom, “ and get sticks of ebony — they last a hundred 
years.” 

“At any rate longer than men’s bones,” laughed 
the chief neat-herd, who had come in to town from 
the pioneer’s country estate, bringing with him animals 
for sacrifices, butter and cheese. “ If we were all to 
follow the master’s example, we should soon have none 
but cripples in the servant’s house.” 

“ Out there lies the lad whose collar-bone he 
broke yesterday,” said the steward, “ it is a pity, for 
he was a clever mat-plaiter. The old lord hit softer.” 

“You ought to know!” cried a small voice, that 
sounded mockingly behind the feasters. 

They looked and laughed when they recognized 
the strange guest, who had approached them unob- 
served. 

The new comer was a deformed little man about 
as big as a five-year-old boy, with a big head and 
oldish but uncommonly sharply-cut features. 

The noblest Egyptians kept house-dwarfs for sport, 
and this little wight served the wife of Mena in this 
capacity. He was called Nemu, or “the dwarf,” and 
his sharp tongue made him much feared, though he 
was a favorite, for he passed for a very clever 
fellow and was a good tale-teller. 

“ Make room for me, my lords,” said the little 
man. “ I take very little room, and your beer and 


126 


TJARDA. 


roast is in little danger from me, for my maw is no 
bigger than a fly’s head.” 

“ But your gall is as big as that of a Nile-horse,” 
cried the cook. 

“It grows,” said the dwarf laughing, “when a 
turn-spit and spoon-wielder like you turns up. There — 
I will sit here.” 

“You are welcome,” said the steward, “what do 
you bring ?” 

“ Myself” 

“ Then you bring nothing great.” 

“ Else I should not suit you either !” retorted the 
dwarf “ But seriously, my lady mother, the noble 
Katuti, and the Regent, who just now is visiting us, 
sent me here to ask you whether Paaker is not yet 
returned. He accompanied the princess and Nefert 
to the City of the Dead, and the ladies are not yet 
come in. We begin to be anxious, for it is already 
late.” 

The steward looked up at the starry sky and 
said : “ The moon is already tolerably high, and my 
lord meant to be home before sun-down.” 

“ The meal was ready,” sighed the cook. “ I shall 
have to go to work again if he does not remain out 
all night.” 

“ How should he ?” asked the steward. “ He is 
with the princess Bent-Anat.” 

“ And my mistress,” added the dwarf 

“What will they say to each other,” laughed the 
gardener ; “ your chief litter-bearer declared that yester- 
day on the way to the City of the Dead they did not 
speak a word to each other.” 

“Can you blame the lord if he is angry with the 


UARDA. 


127 


lady who was betrothed to him, and then was wed to 
another? When I think of the moment when he 
learnt Nefert’s breach of faith I turn hot and cold.’' 

“ Care the less for that,” sneered the dwarf, “ since 
you must be hot in summer and cold in winter.’' 

“ It is not evening all day,” cried the head groom. 
“ Paaker never forgets an injury, and we shall live to 
see him pay Mena — ^high as he is — for the affront 
he has offered him. 

“ My lady Katuti,” interrupted Nemu, stores up 
the arrears of her son-in-law.” 

“ Besides, she has long wished to renew the old 
friendship with your house, and the Regent too 
preaches peace. Give me a piece of bread, steward. 
I am hungry !” 

“ The sacks, into w'hich Mena’s arrears flow, seem 
to be empty,” laughed the cook. 

“ Empty ! empty ! much like your wit !” answered 
the dwarf. “Give me a bit of roast meat, steward; 
and you slaves bring me a drink of beer.” 

“ You just now said your maw was no bigger than 
a fly’s head,” cried the cook, “ and now you devour 
meat like the crocodiles in the sacred tank of Seeland.* 
You must come from a world of upside-down, where 
the men are as small as flies, and the flies as big as 
the giants of the past.” 

“Yet, I might be much bigger,” mumbled the 
dwarf while he munched on unconcernedly, “ perhaps 
as big as your spite which grudges me the third bit of 
meat, which the steward — may Zefa** bless him with 

* The modem Fayoum, where, in the temple of the God Sebek, sacred 
crocodiles were kept and decorated, and expensively fed. 

Zefa, the goddess of the iaundation. 


128 


UARDA. 


great possessions ! — is cutting out of the back of the 
antelope.” 

“ There, take it, you glutton, but let out your girdle,” 
said the steward laughing, “ I had cut the slice for 
myself, and admire your sharp nose.” 

“Ah noses,” said the dwarf, “they teach the know- 
ing better than any haruspex what is inside a man.” 

“ How is that ?” cried the gardener. 

“Only try to display your wisdom,” laughed the 
steward; for, if you want to talk, you must at last 
leave off eating.” 

“The two may be combined,” said the dwarf. 
“ Listen then ! A hooked nose, which I compare to a 
vulture’s beak, is never found together with a sub- 
missive spirit. Think of the Pharaoh and all his 
haughty race. The Regent, on the contrary, has a 
straight, well-shaped, medium-sized nose, like the 
statue of Amon in the temple, and he is an upright 
soul, and as good as the Gods. He is neither over- 
bearing nor submissive beyond just what is right ; he 
holds neither with the great nor yet with the mean, 
but with men of our stamp. There’s the king 
for us!” 

“A king of noses!” exclaimed the cook, “I prefer 
the eagle Rameses. But what do you say to the nose 
of your mistress Nefert?” 

“ It is delicate and slender and moves with every 
thought like the leaves of flowers in a breath of wind, 
and her heart is exactly like it.” 

“ And Paaker ?” asked the head groom. 

“ He has a large short nose with wide open nostrils. 
When Seth whirls up the sand, and a grain of it flies 


UARDA. 


29 


up hfs nose, he waxes angry — so it is Paaker’s nose, 
and that only, which is answerable for all your blue 
bruises. His mother Setchem, the sister of my lady 
• Katuti, has a little roundish soft — ” 

“You pigmy,” cried the steward interrupting the 
speaker, “ we have fed you and let you abuse people 
to your heart’s content, but if you wag your sharp 
tongue against our mistress, I will take you by the 
girdle and fling you to the sky, so that the stars may 
remain sticking to your crooked hump.” 

At these words the dwarf rose, turned to go, and 
said indifferently : “ I would pick the stars carefully 
off my back, and send you the finest of the planets 
in return for your juicy bit of roast. But here come 
the chariots. Farewell ! my lords, when the vulture’s 
beak seizes one of you and carries you off to the war 
in Syria, remember the words of the little Nemu who 
knows men and noses.” 

The pioneer’s chariot rattled through the high 
gates into the court of his house, the dogs in their 
leashes howled joyfully, the head groom hastened 
towards Paaker and took the reins in his charge, the 
steward accompanied him, and the head cook retired 
into the kitchen to make ready a fresh meal for his 
master. 

Before Paaker had reached the garden-gate, from 
the pylon of the enormous temple of Amon, was heard 
first the far-sounding clang of hard-struck plates of 
brass, and then the many-voiced chant of a solemn 
hymn. 

The Mohar stood still, looked up to heaven, called 


0 


ITARm. 


130 

to his servants — “The divine star Sothis is risen!” 
threw himself on the earth, and lifted his arms to- 
wards the star in prayer. 

The slaves and officers immediately followed his 
example. 

No circumstance in nature remained unobserved 
by the priestly guides of the Egyptian people. Every 
phenomenon on earth or in the starry heavens was 
greeted by them as the manifestation of a divinity, 
and they surrounded the life of the inhabitants of the 
Nile- valley — from morning to evening — from the . be- 
ginning of the inundation to the days of drought — with 
a web of chants and sacrifices, of processions and 
festivals, which inseparably knit the human individual 
to the Divinity and its earthly representatives the 
priesthood. 

For many minutes the lord and his servants re- 
mained on their knees in silence, their eyes fixed on 
the sacred star, and listening to the pious chant of 
the priests. 

As it died away Paaker rose. All around him 
still lay on the earth ; only one naked figure, strongly 
lighted by the clear moonlight, stood motionless by a 
pillar near the slaves’ quarters. 

The pioneer gave a sign, the attendants rose ; but 
Paaker went with hasty steps to the man who had 
disdained the act of devotion, which he had so earn- 
estly performed, and cried : 

“Steward, a hundred strokes on the soles of the 
feet of this scoffer.” 

The officer thus addressed bowed and said ; “ My 
lord, the surgeon commanded the mat-weaver not to 


UARDA. 


13 ^ 

move, and he cannot lift his arm. He is suffering 
great pain. Thou didst break his collar-bone yester- 
day.” 

It served him right !” said Paaker, raising his voice 
so much that the injured man could not fail to hear it. 
Then he turned his back upon him, and entered the 
garden ; here he called the chief butler, and said : “ Give 
the slaves beer for their night draught — to all of them, 
and plenty.” 

a" few minutes later he stood before his mother, 
whom he found on the roof of the house, which was 
decorated with leafy plants, just as she gave her two- 
years’-old grand daughter, the child of her youngest son, 
into the arms of her nurse, that she might take her 
to bed. 

Paaker greeted the worthy matron with reverence. 

She was a woman of a friendly, homely aspect; 
several little dogs were fawning at her feet. Her son 
put aside the leaping favorites of the widow, whom 
they amused through many long hours of loneliness, 
and turned to take the child in his arms from those of 
the attendant. But the little one struggled with such 
loud cries, and could not be pacified, that Paaker set it 
down on the ground, and involuntarily exclaimed: 

“ The naughty little thing !” 

“ She has been sweet and good the whole after- 
noon,” said his mother Setchem. “She sees you so 
seldom.” 

“ May be,” replied Paaker ; “ still I know this — the 
dogs love me, but no child will come to me.” 

“You have such hard hands.” 

“ Take the squalling brat away,” said Paaker to the 
nurse. “ Mother, I want to speak to you,” 


132 


TARDA. 


Setcliem quieted the child, gave it many kisses, and 
sent it to bed ; then she went up to her son, stroked 
his cheeks, and said : 

“ If the little one were your own, she would go to 
you at once, and teach you that a child is the greatest 
blessing which the Gods bestow on us mortals.” 

Paaker smiled and said : “ I know what you are 
aiming at — ^but leave it for the present, for I have 
something important to communicate to you.” 

“ Well ?” asked Setchem. 

“To-day for the first time since — you know when, 
I have spoken to Nefert. The past may be forgotten. 
You long for your sister; go to her, I have nothing more 
to say against it.” 

Setchem looked at tier son with undisguised aston- 
ishment; her eyes which easily filled with tears, now 
overflowed, and she hesitatingly asked : “ Can I believe 
my ears; child, have you ? — ” 

“ I have a wish,” said Paaker firmly, “ that you should 
knit once more the old ties of affection with your rela- 
tions; the estrangement has lasted long enough.” 

“ Much too long !” cried Setchem. 

The pioneer looked in silence at the ground, and 
obeyed his mother’s sign to sit down beside her. 

“ I knew,” she said, taking his hand, “ that this day 
would bring us joy; for I dreamt of your father in Osiris, 
and when I was being carried to the temple, I was met, 
first by a white cow, and then by a wedding procession. 
The white ram of Amon, too, touched the wheat-cakes 
that I offered him.”* 

* It boded death to Germanicus when the Apis refused to eat out of his 
hand- 


tJARDA. 


133 


“Those are lucky presages,” said Paaker in a tone 
of conviction, 

“And let us hasten to seize with gratitude that 
which the Gods set before us,” cried Setchem with joy- 
ful emotion. “ I will go to-morrow to my sister and tell 
her that we shall live together in our old affection, and 
share both good and evil; we are both of the same 
race, and I know that, as order and cleanliness preserve 
a house from ruin and rejoice the stranger, so nothing 
but unity can keep up the happiness of the family and 
its appearance before people. What is bygone is by- 
gone, and let it be forgotten. There are many women 
in Thebes besides Nefert, and a hundred nobles in the 
land would esteem themselves happy to win you for a 
son-in-law.” 

Paaker rose, and began thoughtfully pacing the 
broad space, while Setchem went on speaking. 

“I know,” she said, “that I have touched a wound 
in thy heart; but it is already closing, and it will heal 
when you are happier even than the charioteer Mena, 
and need no longer hate him. Nefert is good, but she 
is delicate and not clever, and scarcely equal to the 
management of so large a household as ours. Ere long 
I too shall be wrapped in mummy-cloths, and then if 
duty calls you into Syria some prudent housewife must 
take my place. It is no small matter. Your grand- 
father Assa often would say that a house well-conducted 
in every detail was a mark of a family owning an un- 
spotted name, and living with wise liberality and se- 
cure solidity, in which each had his assigned place, his 
allotted duty to fulfil, and his fixed rights to demand. 
How often have I prayed to the Hathors that they may 
send you a wife after my own heart.” 


134 


UARDA. 


Setchem I shall never find!” said Paaker kiss- 
ing his mother’s forehead, “ women of your sort are dy- 
ing out,” 

“Flatterer!” laughed Setchem, shaking her finger at 
her son. But it is true. 'Fhose who are now growing 
up dress and smarten themselves with stuffs from Kaft,* 
mix their language with Syrian words, and leave the 
steward and housekeeper free when they themselves 
ought to command. Even my sister Katuti, and Ne- 
fert — 

“Nefert is different from other women,” interrupted 
Paaker, “and if you had brought her up she would 
know how to manage a house as well as how to orna- 
ment it.” 

Setchem looked at her son in surprise; then she 
said, half to herself: “Yes, yes, she is a sweet child; it 
is impossible for any one to be angry with her who 
looks into her eyes. And yet I was cruel to her be- 
cause you were hurt by her, and because — but you 
know. But now you have forgiven, I forgive her, 
willingly; her and her husband.” 

Paaker’s brow clouded, and while he paused in front 
of his mother he said with all the peculiar harshness of 
his voice : 

“ Jle shall pine away in the desert, and the hyaenas 
of the North shall tear his unburied corpse.” 

At these words Setchem covered her face with her 
veil, and clasped her hands tightly over the amulets 
hanging round her neck. Then she said softly : 

“How terrible you can be! I know well that you 
hate the charioteer, for I have seen the seven arrows 
over your couch over which is written ‘ Death to Mena.* 


Phcenioia. 


tJARDA. 


That is a Syrian charm which a man turns against any 
one whom he desires to destroy. How black you look ! 
Yes, it is a charm that is hateful to the Gods, and that 
gives the evil one power over him that uses it. l^eave 
it to them to punish the criminal, for Osiris withdraws 
his favor from those who choose the fiend for their 
ally.” 

“My sacrifices,” replied Paaker, “secure me the 
favor of the Gods; but Mena behaved to me like a 
vile robber, and I only return to him the evil that be- 
longs to him. Enough of this! and if you love me, never 
again utter the name of my enemy before me. I have 
forgiven Nefert and her mother — that may satisfy 
you.” 

Setchem shook her head, and said : “ What will it 
lead to ! The war cannot last for ever, and if Mena 
returns the reconciliation of to-day will turn to all the 
more bitter enmity. I see only one remedy. Follow 
my advice, and let me find you a wife worthy of 
you.” 

“ Not now !” exclaimed Paaker impatiently. “ In a 
few days I must go again into the enemy’s country, and 
do not wish to leave my wife, like Mena, to lead the 
life of a widow during my existence. Why urge it ? 
my brother’s wife and children are with you — that might 
satisfy you.” 

“ The Gods know how I love them,” answered Set- 
chem; “but your brother Horus is the younger, and 
you the elder, to whom the inheritance belongs. Your 
little niece is a delightful plaything, but in your son I 
should see at once the future stay of our race, the fu- 
ture head of the family ; brought up to my mind and 
your father’s ; for all is sacred to me that my dead hus- 


1^6 


tJARDA. 


band wished. He rejoiced in your early betrothal to 
Nefert, and hoped that a son of his eldest son should 
continue the race of Assa.” 

“ It shall be by no fault of mine that any wish of 
his remains unfulfilled. The stars are high, mother; 
sleep well, and if to-morrow you visit Nefert and your 
sister, say to them that the doors of my house are open 
to them. But stay! Katuti’s steward has ofiered to sell 
a herd of cattle to ours, although the stock on Mena’s 
land can be but small. What does this mean ?” 

“You know my sister,” replied Setchem. “She 
manages Mena’s possessions, has many requirements, 
tries to vie with the greatest in splendor, sees the 
governor often in her house, her son is no doubt ex- 
travagant — and so the most necessary things may often 
be wanting.” 

Paaker shrugged his shoulders, once more embraced 
his mother and left her. 

Soon after, he was standing in the spacious room 
in which he was accustomed to sit and to sleep when 
he was in Thebes. The walls of this room were white- 
washed and decorated with pious sentences in hiero- 
glyphic writing, which framed in the door and the 
windows opening into the garden. 

In the middle of the farther wall was a couch in 
the form of a lion. The upper end of it imitated a 
lion’s head, and the foot, its curling tail; a finely^ 
dressed lion’s skin was spread over the bed, and a head- 
rest of ebony, decorated with pious texts, stood on a 
high foot-step, ready for the sleeper. 

Above the bed various costly weapons and whips 
were elegantly displayed, and below them the seven 
arrows over which. Setchem had read the words “ Death 


TJARDA, 


137 


to Mena.’* They were written across a sentence which 
enjoined feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, 
and clothing the naked;* with loving-kindness, alike to 
the great and the humble. 

A niche by the side of the bed-head was closed 
with a curtain of purple stuff. 

In each comer of the room stood a statue ; three of 
them symbolized the triad of Thebes — Amon, Muth, 
and Chunsu — and the fourth the dead father of the 
pioneer. In front of each was a small altar for offerings, 
with a hollow in it, in which was an odoriferous essence. 
On a wooden stand were little images of the Gods and 
amulets in great number, and in several painted chests 
lay the clothes, the ornaments and the papers of the 
master. In the midst of the chamber stood a table and 
several stool-shaped seats. 

When Paaker entered the room he found it lighted 
with lamps, and a large dog sprang joyfully to meet 
him. He let him spring upon him, threw him to the 
ground, let him once more rush upon him, and then 
kissed his clever head. 

Before his bed an old negro of powerful build lay 
in deep sleep. Paaker shoved him with his foot and 
called to him as he awoke — 

“ I am hungry.” 

The grey-headed black man rose slowly, and left 
the room. 

As soon as he was alone Paaker drew the philter from 
his girdle, looked at it tenderly, and put it in a box, in 
which there were several flasks of holy oils for sacrifice. 

He was accustomed every evening to fill the hol- 

* A command frequently repeated in the Sacred Writings, and often found in 
the monuments of theancient empire, for instance at Beni-Hassan ^lath dynasty), 
ro 


UARDA. 


138 

lows in the altars with fresh essences, and to prostrate 
himself in prayer before the images of the Gods. 

To-day he stood before the statue of his father, 
kissed its feet, and murmured : “ Thy will shall be 
done. The woman whom thou didst intend for me 
shall indeed be mine — thy eldest son’s.” 

Then he walked to and fro and thought over the 
events of the day. 

At last he stood still, with his arms crossed, and 
looked defiantly at the holy images ; like a traveller 
who drives away a false guide, and thinks to find the 
road by himself 

His eye fell on the arrows over his bed ; he smiled, 
and striking his broad breast with his fist, he ex- 
claimed, “ I — I — I — ” 

His hound, who thought his master meant to call 
him, rushed up to him. He pushed him off and said — 

“ If you meet a hyaena in the desert, you fall 
upon it without waiting till it is touched by my lance 
— and if the Gods, my masters, delay, I myself will 
defend my right; but thou,” he continued turning to 
the image of his father, “ thou wilt support me.” 

This soliloquy was interrupted by the slaves who 
brought in his meal. 

Paaker glanced at the various dishes which the 
cook had prepared for him, and asked : “ How often 
shall I command that not a variety, but only one large 
dish shall be dressed for me ? And the wine ?” 

“ Thou art used never to touch it ?” answered the 
old negro. 

“ But to-day I wish for some,” said the pioneer. 
“ Bring one of the old jars of red wine of Kakem.”* 

* A place not far from the Pyramid of Saqqarah in the Necropolis ol 


tJARDA. 


*39 


The slaves looked at each other in astonishment; 
the wine was brought, and Paaker emptied beaker 
after beaker. When the servants had left him, the 
boldest among them said: “Usually the master eats 
like a lion, and drinks like a midge, but to-day — ” 

“ Hold your tongue !” cried his companion, “ and 
come into the court, for Paaker has sent us out beer. 
The Hathors must have met him.” 

The occurrences of the day must indeed have 
taken deep hold on the inmost soul of the pioneer; 
for he, the most sober of all the warriors of Rameses, 
to whom intoxication was unknown, and who avoided 
the banquets of his associates — now sat at the mid- 
night hours, alone at his table, and toped till his 
weary head grew heavy. 

He collected himself^ went towards his couch and 
drew the curtain which concealed the niche at the 
head of the bed. A female figure, with the head-dress 
and attributes of the Goddess Hathor, made of painted 
limestone, revealed itself. 

Her countenance had the features of the wife of 
Mena. 

The king, four years since, had ordered a sculptor 
to execute a sacred image with the lovely features 
of the newly-married bride of his charioteer, and 
l^aaker had succeeded in having a duplicate made. 

He now knelt down on the couch, gazed on the 
image with moist eyes, looked cautiously around to 
see if he was alone, leaned forward, pressed a kiss to 
the delicate, cold stone lips ; laid down and went to 


Memphis, where, even in remote times, there must have been a wine-press, as 
the red wine of Kakem (Kochome?) is often mentioned. 


140 


UARDA. 


sleep without undressing himself, and leaving the lamps 
to burn themselves out. 

Restless dreams disturbed his spirit, and when the 
dawn grew grey, he screamed out, tormented by a 
hideous vision, so pitifully, that the old negro, who 
had laid himself near the dog at the foot of his bed, 
sprang up alarmed, and while the dog howled, called 
him by his name to wake him. 

Paaker awoke with a dull head-ache. The vision 
which had tormented him stood vividly before his mind, 
and he endeavored to retain it that he might sum- 
mon a haruspex to interpret it. After the morbid 
fancies of the preceding evening he felt sad and de- 
pressed. 

The morning-hymn rang into his room with a 
warning voice from the temple of Amon ; he cast off 
evil thoughts, and resolved once more to resign the 
conduct of his fate to the Gods, and to renounce all 
the arts of magic. 

As he was accustomed, he got into the bath that 
was ready for him. While splashing in the tepid water 
he thought with ever increasing eagerness of Nefert 
and of the philter which at first he had meant not to 
offer to her, but which actually was given to her by 
his hand, and which might by this time have begun 
to exercise its charm. 

Love placed rosy pictures — hatred set blood-red 
images before his eyes. He strove to free himself from 
the temptations, which more and more tightly closed in 
upon him, but it was with him as with a man who has 
fallen into a bog, who, the more vehemently he tries 
to escape from the mire, sinks the deeper. 

As the sun rose, so rose his vital energy and his 


UARDA. 


I4I 

self-confidence, and when he prepared to quit his 
dwelling, in his most costly clothing, he had arrived 
once more at the decision of the night before, and had 
again resolved to fight for his purpose, without— -and 
if need were — against the Gods. 

The Mohar had chosen his road, and he never 
turned back when once he had begun a journey. 

CHAPTER IX. 

It was noon : the rays of the sun found no way 
into the narrow shady streets of the city of Thebes, 
but they blazed with scorching heat on the broad 
dyke-road which led to the king’s castle, and which at 
this hour was usually almost deserted. 

To-day it was thronged with foot-passengers and 
chariots, with riders and litter-bearers. 

Here and there negroes poured water on the road 
out of skins, but the dust was so deep, that, in spite 
of this, it shrouded the streets and the passengers in a 
dry cloud, which extended not only over the city, but 
down to the harbor where the boats of the inhabi- 
tants of the Necropolis landed their freight. 

The city of the Pharaohs was in unwonted agita- 
tion, for the storm-swift breath of rumor had spread 
some news which excited both alarm and hope in the 
huts of the poor as well as in the palaces of the 
great. 

In the early morning three mounted messengers 
nad arrived from the king’s camp with heavy letter-* 
bags, and had dismounted at the Regent’s palace. 

* The Egyptians were great letter-writers, and many of their letters have 


142 


UARDA. 


As after a long drought the inhabitants of a village 
gaze up at the black thunder-cloud that gathers above 
their heads promising the refreshing rain — but that 
may also send the kindling lightning-flash or the destroy- 
ing hail-storm — so the hopes and the fears of the 
citizens were centred on the news which came but 
rarely and at irregular intervals from the scene of 
war; for there was scarcely a house in the huge city 
which had not sent a father, a son, or a relative to 
the fighting hosts of the. king in the distant north- 
east. 

And though the couriers from the camp were 
much oftener the heralds of tears than of joy; though 
the written rolls which they brought told more often 
of death and wounds than of promotion, royal favors, 
and conquered spoil, yet they were expected with soul- 
felt longing and received with shouts of joy. 

Great and small hurried after their arrival to the 
Regent’s palace, and the scribes — who distributed 
the letters and read the news which was intended 
for public communication, and the lists of those 
who had fallen or perished — were closely besieged 
with enquirers. 

Man has nothing harder to endure than uncer- 
tainty, and generally, when in suspense, looks forward 
to bad rather than to good news. And the bearers of 
ill ride faster than the messengers of weal. 

The Regent Ani resided in a building adjoining 
the king’s palace. His business-quarters surrounded 

come down to us, they also had established postmen, and had a word for 
them in their language “fai chat.” Maspero has treated^ the matter extremely 
well in his paper “du genre epistolaire chez les anciens Egyptiens de r6poque 
Pharaomquc,’' 


UARDA. 


H3 

an immensely wide court, and consisted of a great 
number of rooms opening on to this court, in which 
numerous scribes worked with their chief. On the 
farther side was a large, veranda-like hall open at the 
front, with a roof supported by pillars. 

Here Ani was accustomed to hold courts of justice, 
and to receive officers, messengers, and petitioners. 

To-day he sat, visible to all comers, on a costly 
throne in this hall, surrounded by his numerous fol- 
lowers, and overlooking the crowd of people whom the 
guardians of the peace* guided with long staves, ad- 
mitting them in troops into the court of the “ High 
Gate,” and then again conducting them out. 

What he saw and heard was nothing joyful, for 
from each group surrounding a scribe arose a cry of 
woe. Few and far between were those who had to 
tell of the rich booty that had fallen to their friends. 

An invisible web woven of wailing and tears 
seemed to envelope the assembly. 

Here men were lamenting and casting dust upon 
their heads, there women were rending their clothes, 
shrieking loudly, and crying as they waved their veils : 
‘‘oh, my husband! oh, my father! oh, my brother!” 

Parents who had received the news of the death of 
their son fell on each other’s neck weeping; old men 
plucked out their grey hair and beard ; young women 
beat their forehead and breast, or implored the scribes 
who read out the lists to let them see for themselves 
the name of the beloved one who was for ever torn 
from them. 

The passionate stirring of a soul, whether it be the 
result of joy or of sorrow, among us modems covers its 

* Presumably a kind of DoHce, — Transit 


144 


UARDA. 


features with a veil, which it had no need of among 
the ancients. 

Where the loudest laments sounded, a restless little 
being might be seen hurrying from group to group ; it 
was Nemu, Katuti’s dwarf, whom we know. 

Now he stood near a woman of the better class, 
dissolved in tears because her husband had fallen in 
the last battle. 

“ Can you read ?” he asked her ; “ up there on the 
architrave is the name of Rameses, with all his titles. 
‘ Dispenser of life,’ he is called. Aye indeed ; he can 
create — widows ; for he has all the husbands killed.” 

Before the astonished woman could reply, he stood 
by a man sunk in woe, and pulling his robe, said: 
“ Finer fellows than your son have never been seen in 
Thebes. Let your youngest starve, or beat him to a 
cripple, else he also will be dragged off to Syria; for 
Rameses needs much good Egyptian meat for the 
Syrian vultures.” 

The old man, who had hitherto stood there in 
silent despair, clenched his fist. The dwarf pointed 
to the Regent, and said: “If he there wielded the 
sceptre, there would be fewer orphans and beggars by 
the Nile. To-day its sacred waters are still sweet, 
but soon it will taste as salt as the north sea with all 
the tears that have been shed on its banks.” 

It almost seemed as if the Regent had heard 
th^se words, for he rose from his seat and lifted his 
hands like a man who is lamenting. 

Many of the bystanders ob.served this action ; and 
loud cries of anguish filled the wide courtyard, which 
was soon cleared by soldiers to make room for other 
troops of people who were thronging in, 


UART)A. 


45 


While these gathered round the' scribes, the Regent 
Ani sat with quiet dignity on the throne, surrounded 
by his suite and his secretaries, and held audiences. 

He was a man at the close of his fortieth year 
and the favorite cousin of the king. 

• Rameses 1., the grandfather of the reigning monarcli. 
had deposed the legitimate royal family, and usurped 
the sceptre of the Pharaohs. He descended from a 
Semitic race who had remained in Egypt at the time 
of the expulsion of the Hyksos,* and had distinguished 
itself by warlike talents under Thotmes and Ameno- 
phis. After his death he was succeeded by his son 
Seti, who sought to earn a legitimate claim to the 
throne by marrying Tuaa,the grand-daughter of Ameno- 
phis III. She presented him with an only son, whom 
he named after his father Rameses. This prince might 
lay claim to perfect legitimacy through his mother, 
who descended directly from the old house of sover- 
eigns; for in Egypt a noble family — even that of the 
Pharaohs — might be perpetuated through women. 

Seti proclaimed Rameses** partner of his throne, 
so as to remove all doubt as to the validity of his posi- 
tion. The young nephew of his wifeTuaa, the Regent 
Ani, who was a few years younger than Rameses, he 
caused to be brought up in the House of Seti, and 
treated him like his own son, while the other members 

< 

* These were an eastern race who migrated from Asia into EgyjJt, con- 
quered the lower Nile- valley, and ruled over it for nearly 500 years, till they 
were driven out by the successors of the old legitimate Pharaohs, whose domin- 
ion had been confined to upper Egypt. 

** Apparently even at his birth. According to an inscription at Abydos, 
published by Mariette, and first interpreted by Maspero, Rameses boasts of 
having been “ King even in the egg.” He is the Sesostris of the Greeks. His 
surname Sesesu-Ra is preserved on the monuments. When the Greeks speak 
of the great deeds of Se.sostris, they include those of Seti and Rameses. 


146 


trARDA, 


of the dethroned royal family were robbed of their 
possessions or removed altogether. 

Ani proved himself a faithful servant to Seti, and 
to his. son, and was trusted as a brother by the warlike 
and magnanimous Rameses, who however never dis- 
guised from himself the fact that the blood in his ■ 
own veins was less purely royal than that which flowed 
in his cousin’s. 

It was required of the race of the Pharaohs of 
Egypt that it should be descended from the Sun-god 
Ra, and the Pharaoh could boast of this high descent 
only through his mother — Ani through both parents. 

But Rameses sat on the throne, held the sceptre 
with a strong hand, and thirteen young sons promised 
to his house the lordship over Egypt to all eternity. 

When, after the death of his warlike father, he 
went to fresh conquests in the north, he appointed 
Ani, who had proved himself worthy as governor of 
the province of Kush,* to the regency of the king- 
dom. 

A vehement character often over-estimates the man 
who is endowed with, a quieter temperament, into 
whose nature he cannot throw himself, and whose ex- 
cellences he is unable to imitate ; so it happened that 
the deliberate and passionless nature of his cousin 
impressed the fiery and warlike Rameses. 

Ani appeared to be devoid of ambition, or the 
spirit of enterprise ; he accepted the dignity that was 
laid upon him with apparent reluctance, and seemed 
a particularly safe person, because he had lost both 
wife and child, and could boast of no heir. 

He was a man of more than middle height; his 

* Ethiopia. 


UARDA. 


147 


features were remarkably regular — even beautifully- 
cut, but smooth and with little expression. His clear 
blue eyes and thin lips gave no evidence of the 
emotions that filled his heart; on the contrary, his 
countenance wore a soft smile that could adapt itself 
to haughtiness, to humility, and to a variety of shades 
of feeling, but which could never be entirely banished 
from his face. 

He had listened with affable condescension to the 
complaint of a landed proprietor, whose cattle had 
been driven off for the king’s army, and had promised 
that his case should be enquired into. The plundered 
man was leaving full of hope; but when the scribe 
who sat at the feet of the Regent enquired to whom 
the investigation of this encroachment of the troops 
should be entrusted, Ani said : ‘‘ Each one must bring a 
victim to the war ; it must remain among the things 
that are done, and cannot be undone.” 

The Nomarch* of Suan, in the southern part of 
the country, asked for funds for a necessary, new em- 
bankment. The Regent listened to his eager rep- 
resentation with benevolence, nay with expressions of 
sympathy; but assured him that the war absorbed all 
the funds of the state, that the chests were empty; 
still he felt inclined — even if they had not failed — to 
sacrifice a part of his own income to preserve the 
endangered arable land of his faithful province of 
Suan, to which he desired greeting. 

As soon as the Nomarch had left him, he com- 
manded that a considerable sum should be taken out 
of the Treasury, and sent after the petitioner. 

From time to time in the middle of conversation, 


* Chief of a Nome or district 


148 


ITARDA. 


he arose, and made a gesture of lamentation, to show 
to the assembled mourners in the court that he sym- 
pathized in the losses which had fallen on them. 

The sun had already passed the meridian, when 
a disturbance, accompanied by loud cries, took pos- 
session of the masses of people, who stood round the 
scribes in the palace court. 

Many men and women were streaming together 
towards one spot, and even the most impassive of the 
Thebans present turned their attention to an incident 
so unusual in this place. 

A detachment of constabulary made a way through 
the crushing and yelling mob, and another division of 
Lybian police led a prisoner towards a side gate of 
the court. Before they could reach it, a messenger 
came up with them, from the Regent, who desired to 
be informed as to what happened. 

The head of the officers of public safety followed 
him, and with eager excitement informed Ani, who 
was waiting for him, that a tiny man, the dwarf of 
the Lady Katuti, had for several hours been going 
about in the court, and endeavoring to poison the 
minds of the citizens with seditious speeches. 

Ani ordered that the misguided man should be 
thrown into the dungeon; but so soon as the chief 
officer had left him, he commanded his secretary to 
have the dwarf brought into his presence before sun- 
down. 

While he was giving this order an excitement of 
another kind seized the assembled multitude. 

As the sea parted and stood on the right hand 
and on the left of the Hebrews, so that no wave wetted 
the foot of the pursued fugitives, so the crowd of 


UARDA- 


149 


people of their own free will, but as if in reverent sub- 
mission to some high command, parted and formed a 
broad way, through which walked the high-priest of 
the House of Seti, as, full robed and accompanied by 
some of the “ holy fathers,” he now entered the court. 

The Regent went to meet him, bowed before him, 
and then withdrew to the back of the hall with him alone. 

“It is nevertheless incredible,” said Ameni, “that 
our serfs are to follow the militia !” 

“ Rameses requires soldiers — to conquer,” replied 
the Regent. 

“ And we bread — to live,” exclaimed the priest. 

“ Nevertheless I am commanded, at once, before the 
seed-time, to levy the temple-serfs. I regret the order, 
but the king is the will, and I am only the hand.” 

“ The hand, which he makes use of to sequester 
ancient rights, and to open a way to the desert over 
the fruitful land.” ♦ 

“ Your acres will not long remain unprovided for. 
Rameses will win new victories with the increased army, 
and the help of the Gods.” 

“ The Gods ! whom he insults !” 

“ After the conclusion of peace he will reconcile the 
Gods by doubly rich gifts. He hopes confidently for an 
early end to the war, and writes to me that after the next 
battle he wins he intends to offer terms to the Cheta. A 
plan of the king’s is also spoken of — to marry again, 
and, indeed, the daughter of the Cheta King Chetasar.” 

Up to this moment the Regent had kept his eyes 
cast down. Now he raised them, smiling, as if he 
would fain enjoy Ameni’s satisfaction, and asked : 


* “With good management,” said the first Napoleon, “the Nile encroaches 
upon the desert, with had management the desert encroaches upon the Nile.” 


UARDA. 


IS® 


“ What dost thou say to this project ?” 

“ I say/’ returned Ameni, and his voice, usually so 
stern, took a tone of amusement, “ I say that Rameses 
seems to think that the blood of thy cousin and of 
his mother, which gives him his right to the throne, is 
incapable of pollution.” 

“ It is the blood of tlie Sun-god !” 

“ Which runs but half pure in his veins, but wholly 
pure in thine.” 

The Regent made a deprecatory gesture, and 
said softly, with a smile which resembled that of a 
dead man : 

“ We are not alone.” 

“ No one is here,” said Ameni, “who can hear us; 
and what I say is known to every child.” 

“ But if it came to the king’s ears — ” whispered 
Ani, “ he — ” 

“ He would perceive how unwise it is to derogate 
from the ancient rights of those on whom it is incum- 
bent to prove the purity of blood of the sovereign of 
this land. However, Rameses sits on the throne; may 
life bloom for him, with health and strength !”* 

The Regent bowed, and then asked ; 

“ Do you propose to obey the demand of the Pha- 
raoh without delay ?” 

“He is the king. Our council, which will meet in 
a few days, can only determine how, and not whether 
we shall fulfil his command.” 

“You will retard the departure of the serfs, and 
Rameses requires them at once. The bloody labor 
of the war demands new tools.” 


* A formula which even in private letters constantly follows the name of 
the Pharaoh. 


UARDA. 


“ And the peace will perhaps demand a new master, 
who understands how to employ the sons of the land 
to its greatest advantage — a genuine son of Ra.” 

The Regent stood opposite the high-priest, mo- 
tionless as an image cast in bronze, and remained 
silent ; but Ameni lowered his staff before him as be- 
fore a god, and then went into the fore part of the hall. 

When Ani followed him, a soft smile played as 
usual upon his countenance, and full of dignity he took 
his seat on the throne. 

“ Art thou at an end of thy communications ?” he 
asked the high-priest. 

“ It remains for me to inform you all,” replied Ameni 
with a louder voice, to be heard by all the assembled 
dignitaries, “ that the princess Bent-Anat yesterday 
morning committed a heavy sin, and that in all the 
temples in the land the Gods shall be entreated with. 
offerings to take her uncleanness from her.” 

Again a shadow passed over the smile on the 
Regent’s countenance. He looked meditatively on the 
ground, and then said : 

“To-morrow I will visit the House of Seti; till then 
I beg that this affair may be left to rest.” 

Ameni bowed, and the Regent left the hall to 
withdraw to a wing of the king’s palace, in which he 
dwelt. 

On his writing-table lay sealed papers. He knew 
that they contained important news for him; but he 
loved to do violence to his curiosity, to test his resolu- 
tion, and like an epicure to reserve the best dish till 
the last. 

He now glanced first at some unimportant letters. 

A dumb negro, who squatted at his feet, burned the 


152 


UARDA. 


papyrus rolls which his master gave him in a brazier. 
A secretary made notes of the short facts which Ani 
called out to him, and the ground work was laid of 
the answers to the different letters. 

At a sign from his master this functionary quitted 
the room, and Ani then slowly opened a letter 
from the king, whose address: “To my brother Ani,” 
showed that it contained, not public, but private in- 
formation. 

On these lines, as he well knew, hung his future 
life, and the road it should follow. 

With a smile, that was meant to conceal even from 
himself his deep inward agitation, he broke the wax 
which sealed the short manuscript in the royal hand. 

“ What relates to Egypt, and my concern for my 
country, and the happy issue of the war,” wrote the 
Pharaoh, “ I have written to you by the hand of my 
secretary; but these words are for the brother, who 
desires to be my son, and I write to him myself. The 
lordly essence of the Divinity which dwells in me, 
readily brings a quick ‘ Yes ’ or ‘ No ’ to my lips, and it 
decides for the best. Now you demand my daughter 
Bent-Anat to wife, and I should not be Rameses if I 
did not freely confess that before I had read the last 
words of your letter, a vehement ‘No’ rushed to my 
lips. I caused the stars to be consulted, and the entrails 
of the victims to be examined, and they were adverse 
to your request ; and yet I could not refuse you, for 
you are dear to me, and your blood is royal as my 
own. Even more royal, an old friend said, and warned 
me against your ambition and your exaltation. Then 
my heart changed, for I were not Seti’s son if I allow 
myself to injure a friend through idle apprehensions; 


UARDA. 


153 


and lie who stands so high that men fear that he may 
try to rise above Rameses, seems to me to be worthy 
of Bent-Anat. Woo her, and, should she consent freely, 
the marriage may be celebrated on the day when I 
return home. You are young enough to make a wife 
happy, and your mature wisdom will guard my child 
from misfortune. Bent-Anat shall know that her father, 
and king, encourages your suit ; but pray too to the 
Hathors, that they may influence Bent-Anat’s heart in 
your favor, for to her decision we must both submit.” 

The Regent had changed color several times 
while reading this letter. Now he laid it on the 
table with a shrug of his shoulders, stood up, clasped 
his hand behind him, and, with his eyes cast medita- 
tively on the floor, leaned against one of the pillars 
which supported the beams of the roof. 

The longer he thought, the less amiable his ex- 
pression became. “A pill sweetened with honey,* such 
as they give to women,” he muttered to himself. Then 
he went back to the table, read the king’s letter through 
once more, and said : “ One may learn from it how to 
deny by granting, and at the same time not to forget 
to give it a brilliant show of magnanimity. Rameses 
knows his daughter. She is a girl like any other, and 
will take good care not to choose a man twice as old 
as herself, and who might be her father. Rameses 
will ‘ submit ’ — I am to ‘ submit !’ And to what ? to the 
judgment and the choice of a wilful child !” 

With these words he threw the letter so vehe- 
mently on to the table, that it slipped off on to the 
floor. 

* Two recipes for pills are found in the papyri, ono with honey for women, 
and one without for men. 

II 


*54 


UARDA. 


The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully 
on the table again, while his master threw a ball into 
a silver bason. 

Several attendants rushed into the room, and Ani 
ordered them to bring to him the captive dwarf of the 
Lady Katuti. His soul rose in indignation against the 
king, who in his remote camp-tent could fancy he had 
made him happy by a proof of his highest favor. 

When we are plotting against a man we are in- 
clined to regard him as an enemy, and if he offers us 
a rose we believe it to be for the sake, not of the per- 
fume, but of the thorns. 

The dwarf Nemu was brought before the Regent 
and threw himself on the ground at his feet. 

Ani ordered the attendants to leave him, and said 
to the little man : 

“ You compelled me to put you in prison. Stand up 

The dwarf rose and said, “ Be thanked — for my 
arrest too.” 

The Regent looked at him in astonishment; but 
Nemu went on half humbly, half in fun, ‘‘ I feared for 
my life, but thou hast not only not shortened it, but 
hast prolonged it ; for in the solitude of the dungeon 
time seemed long, and the minutes grown to hours.” 

“ Keep your wit for the ladies,” replied the Regent. 

Did I not know that you meant well, and acted in 
accordance with the Lady Katuti’s fancy, I would 
send you to the quarries.” 

My hands,” mumbled the dwarf, “ could only break 
stones for a game of draughts ; but my tongue is like 
the water, which makes one peasant rich, and carries 
away the fields of another.” 

<‘We shall know how to dam it up.” 


UARDA. 


^55 


“ For my lady and for thee it will always flow the 
right way,” said the dwarf. “ I showed the complain- 
ing citizens who it is that slaughters their flesh and 
blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. 
I poured caustic into their wounds, and praised the 
physician.” 

“ But unasked and recklessly,” interrupted Ani ; 
“otherwise you have shown yourself capable, and I 
am willing to spare you for a future time. But over- 
busy friends are more damaging than intelligent 
enemies. When I need your services I will call for 
you. Till then avoid speech. Now go to your mis- 
tress, and carry to Katuti this letter which has arrived 
for her.” 

“ Hail to Ani, the son of the Sun !” cried the dwarf 
kissing the Regent’s foot. “ Have I no letter to carry 
to my mistress Nefert ?” 

“ Greet her from me,” replied the Regent. “ Tell 
Katuti I will visit her after the next meal. The king’s 
charioteer has not written, yet I hear that he is well. 
Go now, and be silent and discreet.” 

The dwarf quitted the room, and Ani went into 
an airy hall, in which his luxurious meal was laid out, 
consisting of many dishes prepared with special care. 
His appetite was gone, but he tasted of every dish, 
and gave the steward, who attended on him, his opinion 
of each. 

Meanwhile he thought of the king’s letter, of Bent- 
Anat, and whether it would be advisable to expose 
himself to a rejection on her part. 

After the meal he gave himself up to his body- 
servant, who carefully shaved, painted, dressed, and 
decorated him, and then held the mirror before him. 


S6 


UARDA, 


He considered the reflection with anxious observation, 
and when he seated himself in his litter to be borne 
to the house of his friend Katuti, he said to himself 
that he still might claim to be called a handsome 
man. 

If he paid his court to Bent-Anat — if she listened 
to his suit — w hat then ? 

He would refer it to Katuti, who always knew how 
to say a decisive word when he, entangled in a hun- 
dred pros and cofis^ feared to venture on a final step. 

By her advice he had sought to wed the prin- 
cess, as a fresh mark of honor — as an addition to his 
revenues — as a pledge for his personal safety. His 
heart had never been more or less attached to her 
than to any other beautiful woman in Egypt. Now 
her proud and noble personality stood before his in- 
ward eye, and he felt as if he must look up to it as 
to a vision high out of his reach. It vexed him that 
he had followed Katuti’s advice, and he began to wish 
his suit had been repulsed. Marriage with Bent-Anat 
seemed to him beset with difficulties. His mood was 
that of a man who craves some brilliant position, 
though he knows that its requirements are beyond his 
powers — that of an ambitious soul to whom kingly 
honors are offered on condition that he will never 
remove a heavy crown from his head. If indeed an- 
other plan should succeed, if — and his eyes flashed 
eagerly — ^if fate set him on the seat of Rameses, then 
the alliance with Bent-Anat would lose its terrors; 
there would he be her absolute King and Lord and 
Master, and no one could require him to account for 
what he might be to her, or vouchsafe to her. 


UARDA. 




CHAPTER X. 

During the events we have described the house 
of the charioteer Mena had not remained free from 
visitors. 

It resembled the neighboring estate of Paaker, 
though the buildings were less new, the gay paint on 
the pillars and walls was faded, and the large garden 
lacked careful attention. In the vicinity of the house 
only, a few well-kept beds blazed with splendid flowers, 
and the open colonnade, which was occupied by Katuti 
and her daughter, was furnished with royal magnifi- 
cence. 

The elegantly carved seats were made of ivory, the 
tables of ebony, and they, as well as the couches, had 
gilt feet. The artistically worked Syrian drinking 
vessels on the sideboard, tables, and consoles were of 
many forms ; beautiful vases full of flowers stood every- 
where; rare perfumes rose from alabaster cups, and 
the foot sank in the thick pile of the carpets which 
covered the floor. 

And over the apparently careless arrangement of 
these various objects there reigned a peculiar charm, 
an indescribably fascinating something. 

Stretched at full-length on a- couch, and playing 
with a silky-haired white cat, lay the fair Nefert — 
fanned to coolness by a negro-girl — while her mother 
Katuti nodded a last farewell to her sister Setchem 
and to Paaker. 

Both had crossed this threshold for the first time 
for four years, that is since the marriage of Mena with 


UARDA. 


'58 

Nefert, and the old enmity seemed now to have given 
way to heartfelt reconciliation and mutual under- 
standing. 

After the pioneer and his mother had disappeared 
behind the pomegranate shrubs at the entrance of the 
garden, Katuti turned to her daughter and said : 

“ Who would have thought it yesterday ? I believe 
Paaker loves you still.” 

Nefert colored, and exclaimed softly, while she 
hit the kitten gently with her fan — 

“ Mother !” 

Katuti smiled. 

She was a tall woman of noble demeanor, whose 
sharp but delicately-cut features and sparkling eyes 
could still assert some pretensions to feminine beauty. 
She wore a long robe, which reached below her 
ankles; it was of costly material, but dark in color, 
and of a studied simplicity. Instead of the ornaments 
in bracelets, anklets, ear and finger-rings, in necklaces 
and clasps, which most of the Egyptian ladies — and 
indeed her own sister and daughter — were accustomed 
to wear, she had only fresh flowers, which were never 
wanting in the garden of her son-in-law. Only a plain 
gold diadem, the badge of her royal descent, always 
rested, from early morning till late at night, on her 
high brow — for a woman too high, though nobly formed 
— and confined the long blue-black hair, which fell 
unbraided down her back, as if its owner contemned 
the vain labor of arranging it artistically. But nothing 
in her exterior was unpremeditated, and the unbe- 
jewelled wearer of the diadem, in her plain dress, and 
with her royal figure, was everywhere sure of being 


UARDA. 


159 


observed, and of finding imitators of her dress, and 
indeed of her deiheanor. 

And yet Katuti had long lived in need ; aye at the 
very hour when we first make her acquaintance, she 
had little of her own, but lived on the estate of her 
son-in-law as his guest, and as the administrator of his 
possessions ; and before the marriage of her daughter 
she had lived with her children in a house belonging 
to her sister Setchem. 

She had been the wife of her own brother,* who 
had died young, and who had squandered the greatest 
part of the possessions which had been left to him by 
the new royal family, in an extravagant love of dis- 
play. 

When she became a widow, she was received as a 
sister with her children by her brother-in-law, Paaker’s 
father. She lived in a house of her own, enjoyed the 
income of an estate assigned to her by the old Mohar, 
and left to her son-in-law the care of educating her 
son, a handsome and overbearing lad, with all the 
claims and pretensions of a youth of distinction. 

Such great benefits would have oppressed and dis- 
graced the proud Katuti, if she had been content with 
them and in every way agreed with the giver. But 
this was by no means the case; rather, she believed 
that she might pretend to a more brilliant outward 
position, felt herself hurt when her heedless son, while 
he attended school, was warned to work more seriously, 
as he would by and by have to rely on his own skill 


* Marriage.s between brothers and sisters were allowed in ancient Egypt. 
The Ptolemaic princes adopted this, which was contrary to the Macedonian 
customs. When Ptolemy II. Philadelphus married his sister Arsinoe, it seems 
to have been thought necessary to excuse it by the relative po.sitions of Venus 
and Saturn at that period, and the constraining influences of these planets. 


6o 


tJARDA. 


and his own strength. And it had wounded her when 
occasionally her brother-in-law had suggested economy, 
and had reminded her, in his straightforward way, o\ 
her narrow means, and the uncertain future of her 
children. 

At this she was deeply offended, for she ventured 
to say that her relatives could never, with all their 
gifts, compensate for the insults they heaped upon 
her; and thus taught them by experience that we 
quarrel with no one more readily than with the bene- 
factor whom we can never repay for all the good he 
bestows on us. 

Nevertheless, when her brother-in-law asked the 
hand of her daughter for his son, she willingly gave 
her consent. 

Nefert and Paaker had grown up together, and by 
this union she foresaw that she could secure her own 
future and that of her children. 

Shortly after the death of the Mohar, the charioteer 
Mena had proposed for Nefert’s hand, but would nave 
been refused if the king himself had not supported the 
suit of his favorite officer. After the wedding, she 
retired with Nefert to Mena’s house, and undertook, 
while he was at the war, to manage his great estates, 
which however had been greatly burthened with debt 
by his father. 

Fate put the means into her hands of indemnifying 
herself and her children for many past privations, and 
she availed herself of them to gratify her innate desire 
to be esteemed and admired ; to obtain admission for 
her son, splendidly equipped, into a company of 
chariot- warriors of the highest class; and to sur- 
round her daughter with princely magnificence. 


UARDA. 


l6l 

When the Regent, who had been a friend of her 
late husband, removed into the palace of the Pharaohs, 
he made her advances, and the clever and decided 
woman knew how to make herself at first agreeable, 
and finally indispensable, to the vacillating man. 

She availed herself of the circumstance that she, 
as well as he, was descended from the old royal house to 
pique his ambition, and to open to him a view, which 
even to think of, he would have considered forbidden 
as a crime, before he became intimate with her. 

Ani’s suit for the hand of the princess Bent-Anat 
was Katuti’s work. She hoped that the Pharoah 
would refuse, and personally offend the Regent, and 
so make him more inclined to tread the dangerous 
road which she was endeavoring to smooth for him. 
The dwarf Nemu was her pliant tool. 

She had not initiated him into her projects by 
any words; he however gave utterance to every im- 
pulse of her mind in free language, which was punished 
only with blow’s from a fan, and, only the day before, 
had been so audacious as to say that if the Pharoah 
were called Ani instead of Rameses, Katuti would be 
not a queen but a goddess for she would then have not 
to obey, but rather to guide, the Pharaoh, who indeed 
himself was related to the Immortals. 

Katuti did not observe her daughter’s blush, for 
she was looking anxiously out at the garden gate, and 
said: 

“Where can Nemu be! There must be some news 
arrived for us from the army.” 

“Mena has not written for so long,” Nefert said 
ffoftly. “ Ah ! here is the steward ! ” 


i 62 


UARDA. 


Katuti turned to the officer, who had entered the 
veranda through a side door 

“What do you bring,” she asked. 

“The dealer Abscha,” was the answer, “presses lor 
payment. The new Syrian chariot and the purple 
cloth—” 

“Sell some corn,” ordered Katuti. 

“Impossible, for the tribute to the temples is not 
yet paid, and already so much has been delivered to 
the dealers that scarcely enough remains over for the 
maintenance of the household and for sowing.” 

“Then pay with beasts.” 

“But, madam,” said the steward sorrowfully, “only 
yesterday, we again sold a herd to the Mohar; and the 
water-wheels must be turned, and the corn must be 
thrashed, and we need beasts for sacrifice, and milk, 
butter, and cheese, for the use of the house, and dung 
for firing.”* 

Katuti looked thoughtfully at the ground. 

“It must be,” she said presently. “Ride to 
Hermonthis, and say to the keeper of the stud that 
he must have ten of Mena’s golden bays driven over 
here.” 

“I have already spoken to him,” said the steward, 
“but he maintains that Mena strictly forbade him to 
part with even one of the horses, for he is proud of 
the stock. Only for the chariot of the lady Nefert — ” 

“I require obedience,” said Katuti decidedly and 
cutting short the steward’s words, “and I expect the 
horses to-morrow.” 


* In Egypt, where there is so little wood, to this day the dried dung of 
beasts is the commonest kind of fuel. 


UARDA. 163 

“ But the stud-master is a daring man, whom Mena 
looks upon as indispensable, and he — ” 

“ I command here, and not the absent,” cried Katuti 
enraged, “and I require the horses in spite of the 
former orders of my son-in-law.” 

Nefert, during this conversation, pulled herself up 
from her indolent attitude. On hearing the last words 
she rose from her couch, and said, with a decision 
which surprised even her mother — 

“The orders of my husband must be obeyed. 
The horses that Mena loves shall stay in their stalls. 
Take this armlet that the king gave me; it is worth 
more than twenty horses.” 

The steward examined the trinket, richly set with 
precious stones, and looked enquiringly at Katuti. 
She shrugged her shoulders, nodded consent, and 
said — 

“Abscha shall hold it as a pledge till Mena’s booty 
arrives. For a year your husband has sent nothing of 
importance.” 

When the steward was gone, Nefert stretched her- 
self again on her couch and said wearily — 

“ I thought we were rich.” 

“We might be,” said Katuti bitterly; but as she 
perceived that Nefert’s cheeks again were glowing, she 
said amiably, “Our high rank imposes great duties on 
us. Princely blood flows in our veins, and the eyes of 
the people are turned on the wife of the most brilliant 
hero in the king’s army. They shall not say that she 
is neglected by her husband. How long Mena remains 
away!” 

“I hear a noise in the court,” said Nefert. “The 
Regent is coming.” 


164 


UARDA. 


Katuti turned again towards the garden. 

A breathless slave rushed in, and announced that 
Bent-Anat, the daughter of the king, had dismounted 
at the gate, and was approaching the garden with the 
prince Rameri. 

Nefert left her couch, and went with her mother 
to meet the exalted visitors. 

As the mother and daughter bowed to kiss the 
robe of the princess, Bent-Anat signed them back 
from her. “Keep farther from me,” she said; “the 
priests have not yet entirely absolved me from my 
uncleanness.” 

“And in spite of them thou art clean in the sight 
of Ra!” exclaimed the boy who accompanied her, her 
brother of seventeen, who was brought up at the House 
of Seti, which however he was to leave in a few weeks 
— and he kissed her. 

“I shall complain to Ameni of this wild boy,” said 
Bent-Anat smiling. “ He would positively accompany 
me. Your husband, Nefert, is his model, and I had no 
peace in the house, for we came to bring you good 
news.” 

“From Mena?” asked the young wife, pressing her 
hand to her heart. 

“As you say,” returned Bent-Anat. “My father 
praises his ability, and writes that he, before all others, 
will have his choice at the dividing of the spoil.” 

Nefert threw a triumphant glance at her mother, 
and Katuti drew a deep breath. 

Bent-Anat stroked Nefert’s cheeks like those of 
a child. Then she turned to Katuti, led her into 
the garden, and begged her to aid her, who had so 


UARDA. 165 

early lost her mother, with her advice in a weighty 
matter. 

“ My father,” she continued, after a few introductory 
words, “informs me that the Regent Ani desires me 
for his wife, and advises me to reward the fidelity of 
the worthy man with my hand. He advises it, you 
understand — ^he does not command.” 

“And thou?” asked Katuti. 

“And I,” replied Bent-Anat decidedly, “must re- 
fuse him.” 

“ Thou must !” 

Bent-Anat made a sign of assent and went on : 

“ It is quite clear to me. I can do nothing else.” 

“ Then thou dost not need my counsel, since even 
thy father, I well know, will not be able to alter thy 
decision.” 

“No God even could alter this one !” said Bent- 
Anat firmly. “ But you are Ani’s friend, and, as I 
esteem him, I would save him this humiliation. En- 
deavor to persuade him to give up his suit. I will 
meet him as though I knew nothing of his letter to 
my father.” 

Katuti looked down reflectively. Then she said — 
“The Regent certainly likes very well to pass his 
hours of leisure with me gossiping or playing draughts, 
but I do not know that I should dare to speak to him 
of so grave a matter.” 

“ Marriage-projects are women’s affairs,” said Bent- 
Anat, smiling. 

“ But the marriage of a princess is a state event,” 
replied the widow. “ In this case it is true the *uncle 
only courts his niece, who is dear to him, and who hS 

* Among the Orientals — and even the Spaniards— it was and is common to 
give the name of uncle to a parent’s cousin. A ote to Am. Bdition, 


UARt)A. 


1 66 

hopes will make the second half of his life the brightest. 
Ani is kind and without severity. Thou would’st win 
in him a husband, who would wait on thy looks, and 
bow willingly to thy strong will.” 

Bent-Anat’s eyes flashed, and she hastily exclaimed : 
“ That is exactly what forces the decisive irrevocable 
‘ No ’ to my lips. Do you think that because I am as 
proud as my mother, and resolute like my father, that 
I wish for a husband whom I could gpvern and lead 
as I would ? How little you know me ! I will be 
obeyed by my dogs, my servants, my officers, if the 
Gods so will it, by my children. Abject beings, who 
will kiss my feet, I meet on every road, and can buy 
by the hundred, if I wish it, in the slave market. I 
may be courted twenty times, and reject twenty suitors, 
but not because I fear that they might bend my pride 
and my will ; on the contrary, because I feel them in- 
creased. The man to whom I could wish to offer my 
hand must be of a loftier stamp, must be greater, 
firmer, and better than I, and I will flutter after the 
mighty wing-strokes of his spirit, and smile at my own 
weakness, and glory in admiring his superiority.” 

Katuti listened to the maiden with the smile by 
which the experienced love to signify their superiority 
over the visionary. 

“Ancient times may have produced such men,” 
she said. “ But if in these days thou thinkest to find 
one, thou wilt wear the lock of youth,* till thou art 
grey. Our thinkers are no heroes, and our heroes are 
no sages. Here come thy brother and Nefert.” 

* The lock of youth was a curl of hair which all the younger members of 
princdy families wore at the side of the head. The young Horus is represented 
with it. 


UaRDA. 167 

‘‘Will you persuade Ani to give up his suit!” said 
the princess urgently. 

“I will endeavor to do so, for thy sake,” replied 
Katuti. Then, turning half to the young Rameri and 
half to his sister, she said: 

“The chief of the House of Seti, Ameni, was in 
his youth such a man as thou paintest, Bent-Anat. 
Tell us, thou son of Rameses, that art growing up 
under the young sycamores, which shall some day 
over-shadow the land — whom dost thou esteem the 
highest among thy companions? Is there one among 
them, who is conspicuous above them all for a lofty 
spirit and strength of intellect?” 

The young Rameri looked gaily at the speaker, 
and said laughing: “We are all much alike, and do 
more or less willingly what we are compelled, and by 
preference every thing that we ought not.” 

“A mighty soul — a youth, who promises to be a 
second* Snefru, aThotmes,or even an Ameni? Dost thou 
know none such in the House of Seti?” asked the widow. 

“ Oh yes !” cried Rameri with eager certainty. 

“ And he is — ?” asked Katuti. 

“ Pentaur, the poet,” exclaimed the youth. Bent- 
Anat’s face glowed with scarlet color, while her 
brother went on to explain. 

“ He is noble and of a lofty soul, and all the Gods 
dwell in him when he speaks. Formerly we used to 
go to sleep in the lecture-hall; but his words carry us 
away, and if we do not take in the full meaning of his 
thoughts, yet we feel that they are genuine and noble.” 

* The ist king of the 4th dynasty, who to a late date was held in high 
honor, and of whom it is said in several places that “the like has not been 
seen since the days of Snefrq.” I'he monuments of his time are the earliest 
which have generdly come down to us. Up to a late period certain priests were 
specially assigned to the worship of his Manes. 


UARDA. 


1 68 


Bent-Anat breathed quicker at these words, and 
her eyes hung on the boy’s lips. 

“You know him, Bent-Anat,” continued Rameri. 
“ He was with you at the paraschites’ house, and in the 
temple-court when Ameni pronounced you unclean. He 
is as tall and handsome as the God Menth,* and I 
feel that he is one of those whom we can never forget 
when once we have seen them. Yesterday, after you 
had left the temple, he spoke as he never spoke be- 
fore; he poured fire into our souls. Do not laugh, 
Katuti, I feel it burning still. This morning we were 
informed that he had been sent from the temple, who 
knows where — and had left us a message of farewell. 
It was not thought at all necessary to communicate the 
reason to us; but we know more than the masters 
think. He did not reprove you strongly enough, Bent- 
Anat, and therefore he is driven out of the House of 
Seti. We have agreed to combine to ask for him to 
be recalled ; Anana is drawing up a letter to the chief 
priest, which we shall all subscribe. It would turn out 
badly for one alone, but they cannot be at all of us at 
once. Very likely they will have the sense to recall 
him. If not, we shall all complain to our fathers, and 
they are not the meanest in the land.” 

“ It is a complete rebellion,” cried Katuti. “ Take 
care, you lordlings ; Ameni and the other prophets are 
not to be trifled with.” 

“ Nor we either,” said Rameri laughing, “ If Pen- 
taur is kept in banishment, I shall appeal to my father 
to place me at the school at Heliopolis or Chennu, 
and the others will follow me. Come, Bent-Anat, I 
must be back in the trap before sunset. Excuse me, 

* Mentli, '.lie Ejyptian God of War. 


UARDA. 169 

Katutl, so we call the school. Here comes your little 
Nemu.” 

The brother and sister left the garden. 

As soon as the ladies, who accompanied them, had 
turned their backs, Bent-Anat grasped her brother’s 
hand with unaccustomed warmth, and said: 

“Avoifl all imprudence; but your demand is just, 
and I will help you with all my heart.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

As soon as Bent-Anat had quitted Mena’s domain, 
the dwarf Nemu entered the garden with a letter, and 
briefly related his adventures; but in such a comical 
fashion that both the ladies laughed, and Katuti, with 
a lively gaiety, which was usually foreign to her, while 
she warned him, at the same time praised his acute- 
ness. She looked at the seal of the letter and said: 

“This is a lucky day; it has brought us great things, 
and the promise of greater things in the future.” 

Nefert came close up to her and said imploringly: 
“ Oj^en the letter, and see if there is nothing in it from 
him.” 

Katuti unfastened the wax, looked through the 
letter with a hasty glance, stroked the cheek of her 
child, and said : 

“Perhaps your brother has written for him; I see 
no line in his handwriting.” 

Nefert on her side glanced at the letter, but not to 
read it, only to seek some trace of the well-known 
handwriting of her husband. 

Like all the Egyptian women of good family she 
1*2 


VARDA. 


170 

could read, and during the first two years of her mar- 
ried life she had often — very often — had the oppor- 
tunity of puzzling, and yet rejoicing, over the feeble 
signs which the iron hand of the charioteer had 
scrawled on the papyrus for her whose slender fingers 
could guide the reed pen with firmness and decision. 

She examined the letter, and at last said, with 
tears in her eyes : 

“Nothing! I will go to my room, mother.” 

Katuti kissed her and said, “ Hear first what your 
brother writes.” 

But Nefert shook her head, turned away in silence, 
and disappeared into the house. 

Katuti was not very friendly to her son-in-law, but 
her heart clung to her handsome, reckless son, the 
very image of her lost husband, the favorite of women, 
and the gayest youth among the young nobles who 
composed the chariot-guard of the king. 

How fully he had written to-day — he who wielded 
the reed-pen so laboriously. 

This really was a letter; while, usually, he only 
asked in the fewest words for fresh funds for the 
gratification of his extravagant tastes. 

This time she might look for thanks, for not long 
since he must have received a considerable supply, 
which she had abstracted from the income of the pos- 
sessions entrusted to her by her son-in-law. 

She began to read. 

The cheerfulness, with which she had met the 
dwarf, was insincere, and had resembled the brilliant 
colors of the rainbow, which gleam over the stagnant 
waters of a bog. A stone falls into the pool, the 


t;Atit)A. lyt 

colors vanish, dim mists rise up, and it becomes foul 
and clouded. 

The news which her son’s letter contained fell, in- 
deed, like a block of stone on Katuti’s soul. 

Our deepest sorrows always flow from the same 
source as might have filled us with joy, and those 
wounds bum the fiercest which are inflicted by a 
hand we love. 

The farther Katuti went in the lamentably incor- 
rect epistle — which she could only decipher with diffi- 
culty — which her darling had written to her, the paler 
grew her face, which she several times covered with 
her trembling hands, from which the letter dropped. 

Nemu squatted on the earth near her, and followed 
all her movements. 

When she sprang forward with a heart-piercing 
scream, and pressed her forehead to a rough palm- 
trunk, he crept up to her, kissed her feet, and exclaimed 
with a depth of feeling that overcame even Katuti, 
who was accustomed to hear only gay or bitter speeches 
from the lips of her jester — 

“ Mistress ! lady ! what has happened ? ” 

Katuti collected herself, turned to him, and tried to 
speak; but her pale lips remained closed, and her eyes 
gazed dimly into vacancy as though a catalepsy had 
seized her. 

‘‘Mistress! Mistress!” cried the dwarf again, with 
growing agitation. “What is the matter? shall I call 
thy daughter?” 

Katuti made a sign with her hand, and cried feebly : 
“The wretches! the reprobates!” 

Her breath began to come quickly, the blood 
mounted to her cheeks and her flashing eyes; she trod 


UARDA. 


171 

upon the letter, and wept so loud and passionately, 
that the dwarf, who had never before seen tears in 
her eyes, raised himself timidly, and said in mild re- 
proach: “Katuti!” 

She laughed bitterly, and said with a trembling 
voice: 

“Why do you call my name so loud! it is dis- 
graced and degraded. How the nobles and the ladies 
will rejoice! Now envy can point at us with spiteful 
joy — and a minute ago I was praising this day! They 
say one should exhibit one’s happiness in the streets, 
and conceal one’s misery; on the contrary, on the con- 
trary! Even the Gods should not know of one’s hopes 
and joys, for they too are envious and spiteful!” 

Again she leaned her head against the palm-tree. 

“Thou speakest of shame, and not of death,” said 
Nemu, “ and I learned from thee that one should give 
nothing up for lost excepting the dead.” 

These words had a powerful effect on the agitated 
woman. Quickly and vehemently she turned upon the 
dwarf saying. 

“You are clever, and faithful too, so listen! but if 
you were Amon himself there is nothing to be done — ” 

“We must try,” said Nemu, and his sharp eyes met 
those of his mistress. 

“Speak,” he said, and trust me. Perhaps I can 
be of no use; but that I can be silent thou knowest.” 

“Before long the children in the streets will talk 
of what this tells me,” said Katuti, laughing with bitter- 
ness, “only Nefert must know nothing of what has 
happened — nothing, mind; what is that? the Regent 
coming! quick, fly; tell him I am suddenly taken ill, 


UARDA, 


173 


very ill ; I cannot see him, not nowl No one is to be 
admitted — no one, do you hear ?” 

The dwarf went. 

When he came back after he had fulfilled his 
trrand, he found his mistress still in a fever of ex- 
citement. 

“Listen,” she said; “first the smaller matter, then 
the frightful, the unspeakable. Rameses loads Mena 
with marks of his favor. It came to a division of the 
spoils of war for the year ; a great heap of treasure lay 
ready for each of his followers, and the charioteer had 
to choose before all the others.” 

“Well?” said the dwarf. 

“ Well !” echoed Katuti. “ Well ! how did the worthy 
householder care for his belongings at home, how did 
he seek to relieve his indebted estate ? It is disgrace- 
ful, hideous ! He passed by the silver, the gold, the 
jewels, with a laugh ; and took the captive daughter of 
the Danaid princes, and led her into his tent.” 

“ Shameful !” muttered the dwarf. 

“ Poor, poor Nefert !” cried Katuti, covering her 
face with her hands. 

“And what more ?” asked Nemu hastily. 

“ That,” said Katuti, “ that is — ^but I will keep calm 
— quite calm and quiet. You know my son. He is 
heedless, but he loves me and his sister more than 
anything in the world. I, fool as I was, to persuade 
him to economy, had vividly described our evil plight, 
and after that disgraceful conduct of Mena he thought 
of us and of our anxieties. His share of the booty 
was small, and could not help us. His comrades threw 
dice for the shares they had obtained — ^he staked his to 
win more for us. He lost — all — all — and at last against 


174 


UARDA. 


an enormous sum, still thinking of us, and only of us, 
he staked the mummy of his dead father.* He lost. If 
he does not redeem the pledge before the expiration 
of the third month, he will fall into infamy,** the 
mummy will belong to the winner, and disgrace and 
ignominy will be my lot and his.” 

Katuti pressed her hands on her face, the dwarf 
muttered to himself, “The gambler and hypocrite!” 

When his mistress had grown calmer, he said : 

“ It is horrible, yet all is not lost. How much is 
the debt?” 

It sounded like a heavy curse, when Katuti replied, 
“ Thirty Babylonian talents.”*** 

The dwarf cried out, as if an asp had stung him. 
“ Who dared to bid against such a mad stake ?” 

“The Lady Hathor’s son, Antef,” answered Katuti, 
“who has already gambled away the inheritance of his 
fathers, in Thebes.” 

“ He will not remit one grain of wheat of his claim,” 
cried the dwarf. “ And Mena ?” 

“ How could my son turn to him after what had 
happened? The poor child implores me to ask the 
assistance of the Regent.” 

“ Of the Regent ?” said the dwarf, shaking his big 
head. “ Impossible 1” 

“I know, as matters now stand; but his place, his 
name.” 


* It was a king of the fourth dynasty, named Asychis by Herodotus, who 
it is admitted was the first to pledge the mummies of his ancestors. “ He who 
stakes Ais pledge and fails to redeem the debt shall, after his death, rest 
neither in his father’s tomb nor in any other, and sepulture shall be denied to 
his descendants.” Herod, ii. 136. 

** This it would appear was the heaviest punishment which could fall on 
an Egyptian Soldier. Diod. i. 78. 

*** 4 ^> 75 ° 


UARDA. 


175 


“Mistress,” said the dwarf, and deep purpose rang 
in the words, “ do not spoil the future for the sake of 
the present. If thy son loses his honor under King 
Rameses, the future King, Ani, may restore it to him. 
If the Regent now renders you all an important ser- 
vice, he will regard you as amply paid when our efforts 
have succeeded, and he sits on the throne. He lets 
himself be led by thee now because thou hast no need 
of his help, and dost seem to work only for his sake, 
and for his elevation. As soon as thou hast appealed 
to him, and he has assisted thee, all thy confidence 
and freedom will be gone, and the more difficult he 
finds it to raise so large a sum of money at once, 
the angrier he will be to think that thou art making 
use of him. Thou knowest his circumstances.” 

“He is in debt,” said Katuti. “I know that.” 

“Thou should’st know it,” cried the dwarf, “for 
thou thyself hast forced him to enormous expenses. 
He has won the people of Thebes with dazzling 
festive displays; as guardian of Apis* he gave a large 
donation to Memphis; he bestowed thousands on the 
leaders of the troops sent into Ethiopia, which were 
equipped by him; what his spies cost him at the 
camp of the king, thou knowest. He has borrowed 
sums of money from most of the rich men in the 
country, and that is well, for so many creditors are so 
many allies. The Regent is a bad debtor; but the 
king Ani, they reckon, will be a grateful payer.” 

Katuti looked at the dwarf in astonishment. 

“You know men!” she said. 

* When Apis (the sacred bull) died under Ptoleinjr I. Soter, his keepers 
spent not only the money which they had received for his maintenance, in his 
obsequies, but borrowed 50 talents of silver (;^i 1,250) from the king. In the 
time of Diodorus joo talents were spent for the same purpose. 


176 


UARDA. 


“To my sorrow!” replied Nemu. “Do not apply to 
the Regent, and before thou dost sacrifice the labor 
of years, and thy future greatness, and that of those 
near to thee, sacrifice thy son’s honor.” 

“And my husband’s, and my own?” exclaimed 
Katuti. “ How can you know what that is I Honor 
is a word that the slave may utter, but whose meaning 
he can never comprehend; you rub the weals that 
are raised on you by blows; to me every finger pointed 
at me in scorn makes a wound like an ashwood lance 
with a poisoned tip of brass. Oh ye holy Gods ! who 
can help us ?” 

The miserable woman pressed her hands over her 
eyes, as if to shut out the sight of her own disgrace. 

The dwarf looked at her compassionately, and said 
fn a changed tone : 

“ Dost thou remember the diamond which fell out 
of Nefert’s handsomest ring? We hunted for it, and 
could not find it. Next day, as I was going through 
the room, I trod on something hard ; I stooped down 
and found the stone. What the noble organ of sight, 
the eye, overlooked, the callous despised sole of the 
foot found; and perhaps the small slave, Nemu, who 
knows nothing of honor, may succeed in finding a 
mode of escape which is not revealed to the lofty 
soul of his mistress !’’ 

“What are you thinking of?” asked Katuti. 

“ Escape,” answered the dwarf. “ Is it true that 
thy sister Setchem has visited thee, and that you are 
reconciled ?” 

“ She offered me her hand, and I took it V 

“Then go to her. Men are never more helpful 
than after a reconciliation. The enmity they have 


UARDA* 


177 


driven out, seems to leave as it were a freshly-healed 
wound which must be touched with caution ; and 
Setchem is of thy own blood, and kind-hearted.” 

“ She is not rich,” replied Katuti. “ Every palm in 
her garden comes from her husband, and belongs to 
her children.” 

. “ Paaker, too, was with you ?” 

.1 “ Certainly only by the entreaty of his mother — ^he 
hates my son-in-law.” 

“I know it,” muttered the dwarf, “but if Nefert 
would ask him ?” 

The widow drew herself up indigr^antly. She felt 
that she had allowed the dwarf too much freedom, 
and ordered him to leave her alone. 

Nemu kissed her robe and asked timidly — 

“ Shall I forget that thou hast trusted me, or am I 
permitted to consider further as to thy son’s safety ?” 

Katuti stood for a moment undecided, then she 
said — 

“ You were clever enough to find what I carelessly 
dropped; perhaps some God may show you what I 
ought to do. Now leave me.” 

“ Wilt thou want me early to-morrow ?” 

“ No.” 

“Then I will go to the Necropolis, and offer a 
sacrifice.” 

“ Go !” said Katuti, and went towards the house 
with the fatal letter in her hand. 

Nemu stayed behind alone; he looked thoughtfully 
at the ground, murmuring to himself. 

“ She must not lose her honor ; not at present, 
or indeed all will be lost. What is this honor ? We 
all come into the world without it, and most of us go 


IJARDA. 


178 

to the grave without knowing it, and very good folks 
notwithstanding. Only a few who are rich and idle 
weave it in with the homely stuff of their souls, as the 
Kuschites* do their hair with grease and oils, till it 
forms a cap of which, though it disfigures them, they 
are so proud that they would rather have their ears 
cut off than the monstrous thing. I see, I see — ^but 
before I open my mouth I will go to my mother. 
She knows more than twenty prophets.’^ 

CHAPTER XII. 

Before the sun had risen the next morning, Nemu 
got himself ferried over the Nile, with the small white 
ass which Mena’s deceased father had given him many 
years before. He availed himself of the cool hour 
which precedes the rising of the sun for his ride 
through the Necropolis. 

Well acquainted as he was with every stock and 
stone, he avoided the high roads which led to the 
goal of his expedition, and trotted towards the hill 
which divides the valley of the royal tombs from the 
plain of the Nile. 

Before him opened a noble amphitheatre of lofty 
lime-stone peaks, the background of the stately terrace- 
temple which the proud ancestress of two kings of the 
fallen family, the great Hatasu, had erected to their 
memory, and to the Goddess Hathor. 

Nemu left the sanctuary to his left, and rode up 
the steep hill-path which was the nearest way from the 
plain to the valley of the tombs. 

* The monuments show us that the ancient negroes of the upper Nile were 
devoted to these repulsive fashions as their modem descendants are. 


UARDA. 


179 


Below him lay a bird’s eye view of the terrace- 
building of Hatasu, and before him, still slumbering 
in cool dawn, was the Necropolis with its houses and 
temples and colossal statues, the broad Nile glistening 
with white sails under the morning mist ; and, in the 
distant east, rosy with the coming sun, stood Thebes 
and her gigantic temples. 

But the dwarf saw nothing of the glorious pano- 
rama that lay at his feet; absorbed in thought, and 
stooping over the neck of his ass, he let the panting 
beast climb and rest at its pleasure. 

When he had reached half the height of the hill, 
he perceived the sound of footsteps coming nearer and 
nearer to him. 

The vigorous walker had soon reached him, and 
bid him good morning, which he civilly returned. 

The hill-path was narrow, and when Nemu ob- 
served that the man who followed him was a priest, 
he drew up his donkey on a level spot, and said 
reverently — 

‘‘ Pass on, holy father ; for thy two feet carry thee 
quicker than my four.” 

“A sufferer needs my help,” replied the leech 
Nebsecht, Pentaur’s friend, whom we have already 
seen in the House of Seti, and by the bed of the 
paraschites’ daughter; and he hastened on so as to 
gain on the slow pace of the rider. 

Then rose the glowing disk of the sun above the 
eastern horizon, and from the sanctuaries below the 
travellers rose up the pious many-voiced chant of 
praise. 

Nemu slipped off his ass, and assumed an attitude 
of prayer; the priest did the same; but while the 


i8o 


UARDA. 


dwarf devoutly fixed his eyes on the new birth of the 
Sun-God from the eastern range, the priest’s eyes 
wandered to the earth, and his raised hand fell to 
pick up a rare fossil shell which lay on the path. 

In a few minutes Nebsecht rose, and Nemu fol- 
lowed him. 

“ It is a fine morning,” said the dwarf ; “ the holy 
fathers down there seem more cheerful to-day than 
usual.” 

The surgeon laughed assent. “ Do you belong to 
the Necropolis?” he said. “Who here keeps dwarfs ?’' 

“No one,” answered the little man. “ But I will 
ask thee a question. Who that lives here behind the 
hill is of so much importance, that a leech from the 
House of Seti sacrifices his night’s rest for him ?” 

“The one I visit is mean, but the suffering is 
great,” answered Nebsecht. 

Nemu looked at him with admiration, and muttered, 

“ That is noble, that is ” but he did not finish his 

speech; he struck his brow and exclaimed, “You are 
going, by the desire of the Princess Bent-Anat, to the 
child of the paraschites that was run over. I guessed 
as much. The food must have an excellent after-taste, 
if a gentleman rises so early to eat it. How is the 
poor child doing ?” 

There was so much warmth in these last words 
that Nebsecht, who had thought the dwarf’s reproach 
uncalled for, answered in a friendly tone — 

“ Not so badly ; she may be saved.” 

“The Gods be praised!” exclaimed Nemu, while 
the priest passed on. 

Nebsecht went up and down the hillside at a re- 
doubled pace, and had long taken his place by the 


UARDA. 


l8l 

couch of the wounded Uarda in the hovel of the para- 
shites, when Nemu drew near to the abode of his 
Mother Hekt, from whom Paaker had received the 
philter. 

The old woman sat before the door of her cave. 

Near her lay a board, fitted with cross pieces, be- 
tween which a little boy was stretched in such a way 
that they touched his head and his feet. 

Hekt understood the art of making dwarfs; play- 
things in human form were well paid for, and the child 
on the rack, with his pretty little face, promised to be 
a valuable article. 

As soon as the sorceress saw some one approaching, 
she stooped over the child, took him up board and all 
in her arms, and carried him into the cave. Then she 
said sternly: 

“If you move, little one, I will flog you. Now let 
me tie you.” 

“Don’t tie me,” said the child, “I will be good 
and lie still.” 

“Stretch yourself out,” ordered the old woman, 
and tied the child with a rope to the board. “ If you 
are quiet. I’ll give you a honey-cake by-and-bye, and 
let you play with the young chickens.” 

The child was quiet, and a soft smile of delight 
and hope sparkled in his pretty eyes. His little hand 
caught the dress of the old woman, and with the 
sweetest coaxing tone, which God bestows on the inno - 
cent voices of children, he said: 

“I will be as still as a mouse, and no one shall 
know that I am here; but if you give me the honey- 
cake you will untie me for a little, and let me go to 
Uarda.” 


i 82 


UARDA. 


“ She is ill ! — what do you want there 

“I would take her the cake,” said the child, and 
his eyes glistened with tears. 

The old woman touched the child’s chin with her 
finger, and some mysterious power prompted her to 
bend over him to kiss him. But before her lips had 
touched his face she turned away, and said, in a hard 
tone: 

“ Lie still ! by and bye we will see.” Then she 
stooped, and threw a brown sack over the child. She 
went back into the open air, greeted Nemu, entertained 
him with milk, bread and honey, gave him news of the 
girl who had been run over, for he seemed to take 
her misfortune very much to heart, and finally asked : 

“What brings you here? The Nile w^as still narrow 
when you last found your way to me, and now it has 
been falling some time.* Are you sent by your mis- 
tress, or do you want my help ? All the world is alike. 
No one goes to see any one else unless he wants to 
make use of him. What shall I give you ?” 

“I want nothing,” said the dwarf, “but — ” 

“You are commissioned by a third person,” said 
the witch, laughing. “ It is the same thing. Whoever 
wants a thing for some one else only thinks of his own 
interest.” 

“May be,” said Nemu. “At any rate your words 
show that you have not grown less wise since I saw you 
last — and I am glad of it, for I want your advice.” 

* This is the beginning of November. The Nile begins slowly to rise 
early in June; between the 15th and 20th of July it suddenly swells rapidly, and 
in the first half of October, not, as was formerly supposed, at the end of Sep- 
tember, the inundation reaches its highest level. Heinrich Barth established 
these data beyond dispute. After the water has b^un to sink it rises once 
more in Octolier and to a higher level than before. Then it soon falls, at fir.>5 
slowly, but by degrees quicker fUid (^uicketr 


UARDA. 


1S3 

“Advice is cheap. What is going on out there?” 
Nemu related to his mother shortly, clearly, and with- 
out reserve, what was plotting in his mistress’s house, 
and the frightful disgrace with which she was threatened 
through heV son. 

The old woman shook her grey head thoughtfully 
several times : but she let the little man go on to the 
end of his story without interrupting him. Then she 
asked, and her eyes flashed as she spoke ; 

“And you really believe that you will succeed in 
putting the sparrow on the eagle’s perch — Ani on the 
throne of Rameses ?” 

“ The troops fighting in Ethiopia are for us,” cried 
Nemu. “The priests declare themselves against the 
king, and recognize in Ani the genuine blood of Ra.’* 

“That is much,” said the old woman. 

“And many dogs are the death of the gazelle,” 
said Nemu laughing. 

“ But Rameses is not a gazelle to run, but a 
lion,” said the old woman gravely. “ You are playing 
a high game.” 

•‘We know it,” answered Nemu. “ But it is for 
high stakes — there is much to win.” 

“And all to lose,” muttered the old woman, passing 
her fingers round her scraggy neck. “ Well, do as you 
please — it is all the same to me who it is sends the 
young to be killed, and drives the old folks’ cattle from 
the field. What do they want with me ?” 

“No one has sent me,” answered the dwarf. “ I 
come of my own free fancy to ask you what Katuti 
must do to save her son and her house from dis- 
honor.” 

Hm!” bummed the witch, looking at Nemu while 


184 


UARDA. 


she raised herself on her stick. “ What has come to 
you that you take the fate of these great people to 
heart as if it were your own ?” 

The dwarf reddened, and answered hesitatingly — > 

“ Katuti is a good mistress, and, if thing^ go well with 
her, there may be windfalls for you and me.” 

Hekt shook her head doubtfully. 

“A loaf for you perhaps, and a crumb for me !” she 
said. There is more than that in your mind, and I 
can read your heart as if you were a ripped up raven, 
You are one of those who can never keep* their fingers 
at rest, and must knead everybody’s dough ; must push, 
and drive and stir something. Every jacket is too tight 
for you. If you were three feet taller, and the son of 
a priest, you might have gone far. High you will go, 
and high you will end ; as the friend of a king — or on 
the gallows.” 

The old woman laughed; but Nemu bit his lips, 
and said : 

“ If you had sent me to school, and if I were not 
the son of a witch, and a dwarf, I would play with 
men as they have played with me ; for I am cleverer 
than all of them, and none of their plans are hidden 
from me. A hundred roads lie before me, when they 
don’t know whether to go out or in ; and where they 
rush heedlessly forwards I see the abyss that they are 
running to.” 

“ And nevertheless you come to me ?” said the old 
woman sarcastically. 

“ I want your advice,” said Nemu seriously. “ Four 
eyes see more than one, and the impartial looker-on 
sees clearer than the player ; besides you are bound to 


UARDA. 


185 

The old woman laughed loud in astonishment. 
** Bound !” she said, “ I ? and to what if you please ?” 

“To help me,” replied the dwarf, half in entreaty, 
and half in reproach. “ You deprived me of my growth, 
and reduced me to a cripple.” 

“ Because no one is better off than you dwarfs,” 
interrupted the witch. 

Nemu shook his head, and answered ffadly — 

“You have often said so — and perhaps for many 
others, who are born in misery like me — perhaps — you 
are right; but for me — you have spoilt my life; you 
have crippled not my body only but my soul, and have 
condemned me to sufferings that are nameless and un- 
utterable.” 

The dwarf’s big head sank on his breast, and with 
his left hand he pressed his heart. 

The old woman went up to him kindly. 

“ What ails you ?” she asked, “ I thought it was well 
with you in Mena’s house.” 

“You thought so?” cried the dwarf. “You who 
show me as in a mirror what I am, and how mys- 
terious powers throng and stir in me ? You made me 
what I am by your arts ; you sold me to the treasurer 
of Rameses, and he gave me to the father of Mena, 
his brother-in-law. Fifteen years ago ! I was a young 
man then, a youth like any other, only more passionate, 
more restless, and fiery than they. I was given as a 
plaything to the young Mena, and he harnessed me to 
his little chariot, and dressed me out with ribbons and 
feathers, and flogged me when I did not go fast enough. 
How the girl — for whom I would have given my life — 
the porter’s daughter, laughed when I, dressed up in 
motley, hopped panting in front of the chariot, and the 

13 


i86 


UARDA. 


young lord’s whip whistled in my ears wringing the sweat 
from my brow, and the blood from my broken heart. 
Then Mena’s father died, the boy went to school, and I 
waited on the wife of his steward, whom Katuti ban- 
ished to Hermonthis. That was a time! The little 
daughter of the house made a doll* of me, laid me in 
the cradle, and made me shut my eyes and pretend to 
sleep, while- love and hatred, and great projects were 
strong within me. If I tried to resist they beat me with 
rods; and when once, in a rage, I forgot myself, and 
hit little Mertitefs hard, Mena, who came in, hung me 
up in the store-room to a nail by my girdle, and left me 
to swing there ; he said he had forgotten to take me 
down again. The rats fell upon me ; here are the scars, 
these little white spots here — ^look ! They perhaps will 
some day wear out, but the wounds that my. spirit re- 
ceived in those hours have not yet ceased to bleed. 
Then Mena married Nefert, and, with her, his mother- 
in-law, Katuti, came into the house. She took me from 
the steward, I became indispensable to her ; she treats 
me like a man, she values my intelligence and listens to 
my advice, — therefore I will make her great, and with 
her, and through her, I will wax mighty. If Ani mounts 
the throne, we will guide him — you, and I, and she ! 
Rameses must fall, and with him Mena, the boy who 
degraded my body and poisoned my soul ! ” 

During this speech the old woman had stood in 
silence opposite the dwarf Now she sat down on her 
rough wooden seat, and said, while she proceeded to 
pluck a lapwing : 

“ Now I understand you; you wish to be revenged. 

* Dolls belonging to the time of the Pharaohs are preserveej in th§ museums, 
for insunce, the jointed ones at Leyden. 


UARDA. 


187 


You hope to rise high, and I am to whet your knife, 
and hold the ladder for you. Poor little man ! there, sit 
down — drink a gulp of milk to cool you, and listen to my 
advice. Katuti wants a great deal of money to escape 
dishonor. She need only pick it up — it lies at her door.” 

The dwarf looked at the witch in astonishment. 

“ The Mohar Paaker is her sister Setchem’s son. Is 
he not ?” 

“ As you say.” 

‘‘ Katuti’s daughter Nefert is the wife of your master 
Mena, and another would like to tempt the neglected 
little hen into his yard.” 

“ You mean Paaker, to whom Nefert was promised 
before she went after Mena.” 

“ Paaker was with me the day before yesterday.” 

« With you ?” 

“ Yes, with me, with old Hekt — to buy a love philter. 
I gave him one, and as I was curious I went after him, 
saw him give the water to the little lady, and found out 
her name.” 

“And Nefert drank the magic drink?” asked the 
dwarf horrified. 

“ Vinegar and turnip juice,” laughed the old witch. 
“ A lord who comes to me to win a wife is ripe for any- 
thing. Let Nefert ask Paaker for the money, and the 
young scapegrace’s debts are paid.” 

“ Katuti is proud, and repulsed me severely when I 
proposed this.” 

“ Then she must sue to Paaker herself for the money. 
Go back to him, make him hope that Nefert is inclined 
to him, tell him what distresses the ladies, and if he re- 
fuses, but only if he refuses, let him see that you know 
something of the little dose.” 


i88 


UARDA. 


The dwarf looked meditatively on the ground, and 
then said, looking admiringly at the old woman : “ That 
is the right thing.” 

“ You will find out the lie without my telling you,” 
mumbled the witch; “your business is not perhaps such a 
bad one as it seemed to me at first. Katuti may thank 
the ne’er-do-well who staked his father’s corpse. You 
don’t understand me ? Well, if you are really the sharp- 
est of them all over there, what must the others be ? ” 

“ You mean that people will speak well of my mis- 
tress for sacrificing so large a sum for the sake — ?” 

“ Whose sake ? why speak well of her ?” cried the 
old woman impatiently. “ Here we deal with other 
things, with actual facts. There stands Paaker — there 
the wife of Mena. If the Mohar sacrifices a fortune 
for Nefert, he will be her master, and Katuti will not 
stand in his way; she knows well enough why her 
nephew pays for her. But some one else stops the 
way, and that is Mena. It is worth while to get him 
out of the way. The charioteer stands close to the 
Pharaoh, and the noose that is flung at one may easily 
fall round the neck of the other too. Make the Mohar 
your ally, and it may easily happen that your rat-bites 
may be paid for with mortal wounds, and Rameses 
who, if you marched against him openly, might blow 
you to the ground, may be hit by a lance thrown from 
an ambush. When the throne is clear, the weak legs of 
the Regent may succeed in clambering up to it with the 
help of the priests. Here you sit — open-mouthed; and 
I have told you nothing that you might not have found 
out for yourself.” 

“ You are a perfect cask of wisdom ! ” exclaimed the 
dwarf. 


UARDX. 


189 


“ And now you will go away,” said Hekt, “ and 
reveal your schemes to your mistress and the Regent, 
and they will be astonished at your cleverness. To-day 
you still know that I have shown you what you have 
to do; to-morrow you will have forgotten it; and the 
day after to-morrow you will believe yourself possessed 
by the inspiration of the nine great Gods. I know that ; 
but I cannot give anything for nothing. You live by 
your smallness, another makes his living with his hard 
hands, I earn my scanty bread by the thoughts of my 
brain. Listen ! when you have half won Paaker, and 
Ani shows himself inclined to make use of him, then say 
to him that I may know a secret — and I do know one, 
I alone — which may make the Mohar the sport of his 
wishes, and that I may be disposed to sell it.” 

“ That shall be done ! certainly, mother,” cried the 
dwarf. “ What do you wish for ? ” 

“ Very little,” said the old woman. “ Only a permit 
that makes me free to do and to practise whatever I 
please, unmolested even by the priests, and to receive 
an honorable burial after my death.” 

“ The Regent will hardly agree to that ; for he must 
avoid everything that may offend the servants of the 
Gods.” 

“ And do everything,” retorted the old woman, “ that 
can degrade Rameses in their sight. Ani, do you hear, 
need not write me a new license, but only renew the old 
one granted to me by Rameses when I cured his favor- 
ite horse. They burnt it with my other possessions, 
when they plundered my house, and denounced me and 
my belongings for sorcery. The permit of Rameses is 
what I want, nothing more.” 

You shall have it,” said the dwarf. “ Good-by; I 


UAKr)A. 


190 

am charged to look into the tomb of our house, and 
see whether the offerings for the dead are regularly 
set out ; to pour out fresh essences and have various 
things renewed. When Sechet has ceased to rage, and 
it is cooler, I shall come by here again, for I should 
like to call on the paraschites, and see how the poor 
child is.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

During this conversation two men had been busily 
occupied, in front of the paraschites’ hut, in driving 
piles into the the earth, and stretching a torn linen cloth 
upon them. 

One of them, old Pinem, whom we have seen 
tending his grandchild, requested the other from time 
to time to consider the sick girl and to work less 
noisily. 

After they had finished their simple task, and spread 
a couch of fresh straw under the awning, they too sat 
down on the earth, and looked at the hut before which 
the surgeon Nebsecht was sitting waiting till the sleep- 
ing girl should wake. 

“ Who is that ?” asked the leech of the old man, 
pointing to his young companion, a tall sunburnt soldier 
with a bushy red beard. 

“ My son,” replied the paraschites, “ whods just re- 
turned from Syria.” 

“ Uarda’s father ?” asked Nebsecht. 

The soldier nodded assent, and said with a rough 
voice, but not without cordiality : 

“No one could guess it by looking at us — she is 


tTARDA. 


191 


SO white and rosy. Her mother was a foreigner, and she 
has turned out as delicate as she was. I am afraid 
to touch her with my little finger — and there comes a 
chariot over the brittle doll, and does not quite crush 
her, for she is still alive.” 

“ Without the help of this holy father,” said the 
paraschites, approaching the surgeon, and kissing his 
robe, “you would never have seen her alive again. 
May the Gods reward thee for what thou hast done for 
us poor folks !” 

“ And we can pay too,” cried the soldier, slapping 
a full purse that hung at his gridle. “We have taken 
plunder in Syria, and I will buy a calf, and give it to 
thy temple.” 

“ Offer a beast of dough,* rather,” replied Neb- 
secht, “and if you wish to show yourself grateful to 
me, give the money to your father, so that he may feed 
and nurse your child in accordance with my instruc- 
tions.” 

“ Hm,” murmured the soldier; he took the purse 
from his girdle, flourished it in his hand, and said, as he 
handed it to the paraschites : 

“ I should have liked to drink it ! but take it, father, 
for the child and my mother.” 

While the old man hesitatingly put out his hand for 
the rich gift, the soldier recollected himself and said, 
opening the purse : 

“ Let me take out a few rings, for to-day I cannot 
go dry. I have two or three comrades lodging in the 
red Tavern. That is right. There, — take the rest of the 
rubbish.” 

* Hogs were sacrificed at the feasts of Selene (the Egyptian Nechebt). 
“The poor offer pigs made of dough.” — Herodotus II., 47. Various kinds of 
cakes baked in the form of animals are represented on the monuments. 


192 


UARDA. 


Nebsecht nodded approvingly at the soldier, and 
he, as his father gratefully kissed the surgeon’s hand, 
exclaimed : 

“ Make the little one sound, holy father ! It is all 
over with gifts and offerings, for I have nothing left ; 
but there are two iron fists and a breast like the wall 
of a fortress. If at any time thou dost want help, 
call me, and I will protect thee against twenty enemies. 
Thou hast saved my child — good ! Life for life. I 
sign myself thy blood-ally — there.” 

With these words he drew his poniard out of his 
girdle. He scratched his arm, and let a few drops of 
his blood run down on a stone at the feet of Nebsecht 
— “ Look,” he said. “ There is my bond, Kaschta has 
signed himself thine, and thou canst dispose of my life 
as of thine own. What I have said, I have said.” 

‘‘ I am a man of peace,” Nebsecht stammered, 
“And my white robe protects me. But I believe our 
patient is awake.” 

The physician rose, and entered the hut. 

Uarda’s pretty head lay on her grandmother’s lap, 
and her large blue eyes turned contentedly on the 
priest. 

“ She might get up and go out into the air,” said 
the old woman. “ She has slept long and soundly.” 

The surgeon examined her pulse, and her wound, 
on which green leaves were laid. 

“ Excellent,” he said ; “ who gave you this healing 
herb ?” 

The old woman shuddered, and hesitated ; but 
Uarda said fearlessly; “Old Hekt, who lives over there 
in the black cave.” 

“The witch!” muttered Nebsecht. “But we will 


UARDA. 


193 


let the leaves remain ; if they do good, it is no matter 
where they came from.” 

‘‘ Hekt tasted the drops, thou didst give her,” said 
the old woman, “ and agreed that they were good.” 

“ Then we are satisfied with each other,” answered 
Nebsecht, with a smile of amusement. “We will carry 
you now into the open air, little maid ; for the air in 
here is as heavy as lead, and your damaged lung re- 
quires lighter nourishment.” 

“ Yes, let me go out,” said the girl. “ It is well 
that thou hast not brought back the other with thee, 
who tormented me with his vows.” 

“You mean blind Teta,” said Nebsecht, “he will 
not come again; but the young priest who soothed 
your father, when he repulsed the princess, will visit 
you. He is kindly disposed, and you should — you 
should — ” 

“ Pentaur will come ?” said the girl eagerly. 

“ Before midday. But how do you know his name ?” 

“ I know him,” said Uarda decidedly. 

The surgeon looked at her surprised. 

“ You must not talk any more,” he said, “ for your 
cheeks are glowing, and the fever may return. We have 
arranged a tent for you, and now we will carry you 
into the open air.” 

“ Not yet,” said the girl “Grandmother, do my 
hair for me, it is so heavy.” 

With these words she endeavored to part her 
mass of long reddish-brown hair with her slender 
hands, and to free it from the straws that had got en- 
tangled in it. 

“ Lie still,” said the surgeon, in a warning voice. 

“ But it is so heavy,” said the sick girl, smiling and 

Umrda. /. 


194 


UARDA. 


showing Nebsecht her abundant wealth of golden hair 
as if it were a fatiguing burden. “ Come, grandmother, 
and help me.” 

The old woman leaned over the child, and combed 
her long locks carefully with a coarse comb made of 
grey horn, gently disengaged the straws from the 
golden tangle, and at last laid two thick long plaits on 
her granddaughter’s shoulders. 

Nebsecht knew that every movement of the 
wounded girl might do mischief, and his impulse was 
to stop the old woman’s proceedings, but his tongue 
seemed spell-bound. Surprised, motionless, and with 
crimson cheeks, he stood opposite the girl, and his 
eyes followed every movement of her hands with 
anxious observation. 

She did not notice him. 

When the old woman laid down the comb Uarda 
drew a long breath. 

“ Grandmother,” she said, “ give me the mirror.” 

The old woman brought a shard of dimly glazed, 
baked clay. The girl turned to the light, contemplated 
the undefined reflection for a moment, and said : 

‘‘ I have not seen a flower for so long, grand- 
mother.” 

“Wait, child,” she replied; she took from a jug 
the rose, which the princess had laid on the bosom of 
her grandchild, and offered it to her. Before Uarda 
could take it, the withered petals fell, and dropped 
upon her. The surgeon stooped, gathered them up, 
and put them into the child’s hand. 

“How good you are!” she said; “I am called 
Uarda — like this flower — and I love roses and the 
fre§h air. AVill you carry me out now ?” 


UARDA. 


19s 


Nebsecht called the ' paraschites, who came into 
the hut with his son, and they carried the girl out 
into the air, and laid her under the humble tent they 
had contrived for her. The soldier’s knees trembled 
while he held the light burden of his daughter’s 
weight in his strong hands, and he sighed when he laid 
her down on the mat. 

“ How blue the sky is !” cried Uarda. “Ah ! grand- 
father has watered my pomegranate, I thought so ! and 
there come my doves! give me some corn in my 
hand, grandmother. How pleased they are.” 

The graceful birds, with black rings round their 
reddish-grey necks, flew confidingly to her, and took 
the corn that she playfully laid between her lips. 

Nebsecht looked on with astonishment at this 
pretty play. He felt as if a new world had opened to 
him, and some new sense, hitherto unknown to him, 
had been revealed to him within his breast. He 
silently sat down in front of the hut, and drew the pic- 
ture of a rose on the sand with a reed-stem that he 
picked up. 

Perfect stillness was around him; the doves even 
had flown up, and settled on the roof. Presently the 
dog barked, steps approached; Uarda lifted herself up 
and said : 

“ Grandmother, it is the priest Pentaur.” 

“Who told you ?” asked the old woman. 

“ I know it,” answered the girl decidedly, and in a 
few moments a sonorous voice cried : “ Good day to 
you. How is your invalid ?” 

Pentaur was soon standing by Uarda; pleased to 
hear Nebsecht’s good report, and with the sweet face 
pf the girl. He had spmp flowers in hi§ hand, that a 


196 


UARDA. 


happy maiden had laid on the altar of the Goddess 
Hathor, which he had served since the previous day, 
and he gave them to the sick girl, who took them with 
a blush, and held them between her clasped hands. 

“ The great Goddess whom I serve sends you 
these,” said Pentaur, “ and they will bring you heal- 
ing. Continue to resemble them. You are pure and 
fair like them, and your course henceforth may be like 
theirs. As the sun gives life to the grey horizon, so you 
bring joy to this dark hut. Preserve your innocence, 
and wherever you go you Avill bring love, as flowers 
spring in every spot that is trodden by the golden foot 
of Hathor.* May her blessing rest upon you !” 

He had spoken the last words half to the old 
couple and half to Uarda, and was already turning to 
depart when, behind a heap of dried reeds that lay 
close to the awning over the girl, the bitter cry of a 
child was heard, and a little boy came forward who 
held, as high as he could reach, a little cake, of which 
the dog, who seemed to know him well, had snatched 
half. 

“ How do you come here, Scherau ?” the paraschites 
asked the weeping boy; the unfortunate child that 
Hekt was bringing up as a dwarf. 

“ I wanted,” sobbed the little one, “ to bring the 
cake to Uarda. She is ill — I had so much — ” 

“ Poor child,” said the paraschites, stroking the boy’s 
hair; ‘‘there — give it to Uarda.” 

Scherau went up to the sick girl, knelt down by her, 
and whispered with streaming eyes : 

“ Take it ! It is good, and very sweet, and if I get 

* Hathor is frequently called “ the golden,” particularly at Dendera.^ 
She has much in common with the “ golden Aphrodite.” 


UARDA. 197 

another cake, and Hekt will let me out, I will bring it to 
you.” 

“Thank you, good little Scherau,” said Uarda, 
kissing the child. Then she turned to Pentaur and 
said : 

“ For weeks he has had nothing but papyrus-pith,* 
and lotus-bread,* and now he brings me the cake which 
grandmother gave old Hekt yesterday.” 

The child blushed all over, and stammered : 

“ It is only half — but I did not touch it. Your dog 
bit out this piece, and this.” 

He touched the honey with the tip of his finger, and 
put it to his lips. “ I was a long time behind the reeds 
there, for I did not like to come out because of the 
strangers there.” He pointed to Nebsecht and Pentaur. 
“ But now I must go home,” he cried. 

The child was going, but Pentaur stopped him, seized 
him, lifted him up in his arms and kissed him ; saying, as 
he turned to Nebsecht : 

“ They were wise, who represented Horus — the sym- 
bol of the triumph of good over evil and of purity over 
the impure — in the form of a child. Bless you, my little 
friend ; be good, and always give away what you have 
to make others happy. It will not make your house 
rich — but it will your heart !” 

Scherau clung to the priest, and involuntarily raised 

* According to Herodotus II. 92., Diodorus i. 80., Pliny xm. 10. The 
Egyptians eat the lower part of the stem of the papyrus, at any rate the pith of 
it ; by preference when it had been dried in the oven. Herodotus also tells us 
that “ they pound the seeds of the lotus which resembles a poppy, and make 
bread of it.” As we see from the monuments that enormous quantities of lotus 
plants grew on the banks of the Nile, the statement of Diodorus that a child, till 
it was grown up, cost its parents no more than 20 drachmae — about 15 shillings — 
IS quite credible. The papyrus has wholly disappeared from Egypt, but this is 
not the case with the lotus plant, which Dr. Rohrbach frequently found, and 
sent to Germany in 1856. At Damietta he saw peasants eat the roots of the 
white, and the seeds of the white and blue lotus. 


UARt)A. 


198 

his little hand to stroke Pentaur’s cheek. An unknown 
tenderness had filled his little heart, and he felt as if 
he must throw his arms round the poet’s neck and cry 
upon his breast. 

But Pentaur set him down on the ground, and he 
trotted down into the valley. There he paused. The 
sun was high in the heavens, and he must return to the 
witch’s cave and his board, but he would so much like 
to go a little farther — only as far as to the king’s tomb, 
which was quite near. 

Close by the door of this tomb was a thatch of 
palm-branches, and under this the sculptor Batau, a 
very aged man, was accustomed to rest. The old man 
was deaf, but he passed for the best artist of his time, 
and with justice; he had designed the beautiful pic- 
tures and hieroglyphic inscriptions in Seti’s splendid 
buildings at Abydos and Thebes, as well as in the tomb 
of that prince, and he was now working at the decora- 
tion of the walls in the grave of Rameses. 

Scherau had often crept close up to him, and thought- 
fully watched him at work, and then tried himself to 
make animal and human figures out of a bit of clay. 

One day the old man had observed him. 

The sculptor had silently taken his humble attempt 
out of his hand, and had returned it to him with a 
smile of encouragement. 

From that time a peculiar tie had sprung up be- 
tween the two. Scherau would venture to sit down by 
the sculptor, and try to imitate his finished images. 
Not a word was exchanged between them, but often 
the deaf old man would destroy the boy’s works, often 
on the contrary improve them with a touch of his 


UAkDA. 19^ 

own hand, and not seldom nod at him to encourage 
him. 

When he staid away the old man missed his pupil, 
and Scherau’s happiest hours were those which he passed 
at his side. 

He was not forbidden to take some clay home with 
him. There, when the old woman’s back was turned, 
he moulded a variety of images which he destroyed as 
soon as they were finished. 

While he lay on his rack his hands were left free, and 
he tried to reproduce the various forms which lived in 
his imagination, he forgot the present in his artistic at- 
tempts, and his bitter lot acquired a flavor of the sweet- 
est enjoyment. 

But to-day it was too late ; he must give up his visit 
to the tomb of Rameses. 

Once more he looked back at the hut, and then hur- 
ried into the dark cave. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Pentaur also soon quitted the hut of the para- 
schites. 

Lost in meditation, he went along the hill-path which 
led to the temple* which Ameni had put under his direc- 
tion. 

He foresaw many disturbed and anxious hours in the 
immediate future. 

The sanctuary of which he was the superior, had been 

* This temple is well proportioned, and remains in good preservation. 
Copies of the interesting pictures discovered in it are to be found in the “ Fjeet 
of an Egyptian queen ” by Dumichen. Other details may be found in Lepsius’ 
Monuments of Egypt, and a plan of the place has recently been published by 
Mariette. 


200 


UARDA. 


dedicated to her own memory, and to the goddess 
Hathor, by Hatasu,* a great queen of the dethroned 
dynasty. 

The priests who served it were endowed with pe- 
culiar chartered privileges, which hitherto had been 
strictly respected. Their dignity was hereditary, going 
down from father to son, and they had the right of 
choosing their director from among themselves. 

Now their chief priest Rui was ill and dying, and 
Ameni, under whose jurisdiction they came, had, with- 
out consulting them, sent the young poet Pentaur to fill 
his place. 

They had received the intruder most unwillingly, 
and combined strongly against him when it became 
evident that he was disposed to establish a severe rule 
and to abolish many abuses which had become estab- 
lished customs. 

They had devolved the greeting of the rising sun 
on the temple-servants; Pentaur required that the younger 
ones at least should take part in chanting the morning 
hymn, and himself led the choir. They had trafficked 
with the offerings laid on the altar of the Goddess ; the 
new master repressed this abuse, as well as the extor- 
tions of which they were guilty towards women in sorrow, 
who visited the temple of Hathor in greater number 
than any other sanctuary. 

The poet — brought up in the temple of Seti to self- 
control, order, exactitude, and decent customs, deeply 
penetrated with a sense of the dignity of his position, 
and accustomed to struggle with special zeal against 

* The daughter of Thotmes I., wife of her brother Thotmes II., and prede- 
cessor of her second brother Thotmes III. An energetic woman who executed 
great works, and caused herself to be represented with the helmet and beard- 
case of a man. 


UARDA. 


201 


indolence of body and spirit — was disgusted with the 
slothful life and fraudulent dealings of his subordinates ; 
and the deeper insight which yesterday’s experience 
had given him into the poverty and sorrow of human 
existence, made him resolve with increased warmth that 
he would awake them to a new life. 

The conviction that the lazy herd whom he com- 
manded was called upon to pour consolation into a 
thousand sorrowing hearts, to dry innumerable tears, 
and to clothe the dry sticks of despair with the fresh 
verdure of hope, urged him to strong measures. 

Yesterday he had seen how, with calm indifference, 
they had listened to the deserted wife, the betrayed 
maiden, to the woman, who implored the withheld bless- 
ing of children, to the anxious mother, the forlorn 
widow, — and sought only to take advantage of sorrow, 
to extort gifts for the Goddess, or better still for their 
own pockets or belly. 

Now he was nearing the scene of his new labors. 

There stood the reverend building, rising stately 
from the valley on four terraces handsomely and singularly 
divided, and resting on the western side against the 
high amphitheatre of yellow cliffs. 

On the closely-joined foundation stones gigantic 
hawks were carved in relief, each with the emblem of 
life, and symbolized Horus, the son of the Goddess, 
who brings all that fades to fresh bloom, and all that 
dies to resurrection. 

On each terrace stood a hall open to the east, and 
supported on tw'o and twenty archaic* pillars. On their 

* Polygonal pillars, which were used first in tomb-building under the 
j2th dynasty, and after the expulsion of the Hyksos under the kings of the. 
17th and 1 8th, in public buildings; but under the subsequent races of kings 
they ceased to be employed. 

T4 


tlARDA; 


26 ^ 

inner walls elegant pictures and inscriptions in the finest 
sculptured work recorded, for the benefit of posterity, 
the great things that Hatasu had done with the help of 
the Gods of Thebes. 

There were the ships which she had to send to 
Punt* to enrich Egypt with the treasures of the east; 
there the wonders brought to Thebes from Arabia might 
be seen; there were delineated the houses** of the in- 
habitants of the land of frankincense, and all the 
fishes of the Red Sea, in distinct and characteristic out- 
line.*** ^ 

On the third and fourth terraces were the small 
adjoining rooms of Hatasu and her brothers Thotmes 
II. and III., which were built against the rock, and en- 
tered by granite doorways. In them purifications were 
accomplished, the images of the Goddess worshipped, 
and the more distinguished worshippers admitted to 
confess. The sacred cows of the Goddess were kept 
in a side-building. 

As Pentaur approached the great gate of the ter- 
race-temple, he became the witness of a scene which 
filled him with resentment. 

A woman implored to be admitted into the fore- 
court, to pray at the altar of the Goddess for her hus- 
band, who was very ill, but the sleek gate-keeper drove 
her back with rough words. 

“It is written up,” said he, pointing to the inscrip- 

* Arabia ; apparently also the coast of east Africa south of Egypt as far as 
Somali. The latest of the lists published by Mariette, of the southern nations 
conquered by Thotmes III., mentions it. This list was found on the pylon of 
the temple of Kamak. 

. ** They stood on piles and were entered by ladders. 

*** The species are in many cases distinguishable — Dr. Donkz has named 
several. 


uarda. 


503 

tion over the gate, “ only the purified may set their 
foot across this threshold, and you cannot be purified 
but by the smoke of incense.” 

“ Then swing the censer for me,” said the woman, 
“ and take this silver ring — it is all I have.” 

A silver ring!” cried the porter, indignantly. 
“ Shall the goddess be impoverished for your sake ! 
The grains of Anta,* that would be used in purifying 
you, would cost ten times as much.” 

“ But I have no more,” replied the woman, “ my 
husband, for whom I come to pray, is ill ; he cannot 
work, and my children — ” 

“You fatten them up and deprive the goddess of 
her due,” cried the gate-keeper. “ Three rings down, 
or I shut the gate.” 

“ Be merciful,” said the woman, weeping. “ What 
will become of us if Hathor does not help my hus- 
band ?” 

“ Will our goddess fetch the doctor ?” asked the 
porter. “ She has something to do besides curing sick 
starvelings. Besides, that is not her office. Go to 
Imhotep** or to Chunsu the counsellor,*** or to the 
great Techuti herself, who helps the sick. There is no 
quack medicine to be got here.” 


* An incense frequently mentioned. 

** The son of Ptah, named Asklepios by the Greeks. Memphis was the 
chief city of his worship ; he is usually represented with a cap on, and a book 
on his knee. There are fine statues of him at Berlin, the Louvre, and other 
museums. A bronze of great beauty is in the possession of Pastor Haken at 
Riga. 

*** The third of the Triad of Thebes; he is identical with Toth, and fi-e- 
miently addressed as of good counsel for the healing of the sick. His great 
Temple in Thebes (Kamak) is well preserved. In the time of the 20th dynasty 
A. C. 1273 to 10^5, his statue (according to a passage interpreted by E. de 
Ronge) was sent into Asia to cure the sister of the v^^e of Raineses XII., an 
Asiatic princess, who was possessed by devils. 


204 


UARDA. 


“ I only want comfort in my trouble,” said the 
woman. 

“ Comfort !” laughed the gate-keeper, measuring the 
comely young woman with his eye. “ That you may 
have cheaper.” 

The woman turned pale, and drew back from the 
hand the man stretched out towards her. 

At this moment Pentaur, full of wrath, stepped 
between them. 

He raised his hand in blessing over the woman, 
who bent low before him, and said, “ Whoever calls 
fervently on the Divinity is near to him. You are pure. 
Enter.” 

As soon as she had disappeared within the temple, 
the priest turned to the gate-keeper and exclaimed : 

“ Is this how you serve the goddess, is this how 
you take advantage of a heart-wrung woman ? Give 
me the keys of this gate. Your office is taken from 
you, and early to-morrow you go out in the fields, and 
keep the geese of Hathor.” 

The porter threw himself on his knees with loud 
outcries ; but Pentaur turned his back upon him, entered 
the sanctuary, and mounted the steps which led to his 
dwelling on the third terrace. 

A few priests whom he passed turned their backs 
upon him, others looked down at their dinners, eating 
noisily, and making as if they did not see him. They 
had combined strongly, and were determined to expel 
the inconvenient intruder at any price. 

Having reached his room, which had been splen- 
didly decorated for his predecessor, Pentaur laid aside 
his new insignia, comparing sorrowfully the past and 
the present. 


UARDA. 


205 


To what an exchange Ameni had condemned him ! 

Here, wherever he looked, he met with sulkiness and 
aversion ; while, when he walked through the courts of 
the House of Seti, a hundred boys would hurry towards 
him, and cling affectionately to his robe. Honored there 
by great and small, his every word had had its value ; and 
when each day he gave utterance to his thoughts, what 
he bestowed came back to him refined by earnest dis- 
course with his associates and superiors, and he gained 
new treasures for his inner life. 

“ What is rare,” thought he, “ is full of charm ; and 
yet how hard it is to do without what is habitual !” 

The occurrences of the last' few days passed before 
his mental sight. Bent-Anat’s image appeared before him, 
and took a more and more distinct and captivating form. 
His heart began to beat wildly, the blood rushed faster 
through his veins ; he hid his face in his hands, and re- 
called every glance, every word from her lips. 

“ I follow thee willingly,” she had said to him before 
the hut of the paraschites. Now he asked himself 
whether he were worthy of such a follower. 

He had indeed broken through the old bonds, but 
not to disgrace the house that was dear to him, only to 
let new light into its dim chambers. 

“To do what we have earnestly felt to be right,” said 
he to himself, “ may seem worthy of punishment to men, 
but cannot before God.” 

He sighed and walked out into the terrace in a mood 
of lofty excitement, and fully resolved to do here noth- 
ing but what was right, to lay the foundation of all that 
was good. 

“We men,” thought he, “prepare sorrow when we 
come into the Avorld, and lamentation when we leave it ; 


2o6 


UARDA. 


and so it is our duty in the intermediate time to fight 
with suffering, and to sow the seeds of joy. There are 
many tears here to be wiped away. To work then !” 

The poet found none of his subordinates on the 
upper terrace. They had all met in the forecourt of 
the temple, and were listening to the gate-keeper’s tale, 
and seemed to sympathize with his angry complaint — 
against whom Pentaur well knew. 

With a firm step he went towards them and said : 

“ I have expelled this man from among us, for he is 
a disgrace to us. To-morrow he quits the temple.” 

“ I will go at once,” replied the gate-keeper defiant- 
ly, “and in behalf of the holy fathers (here he cast a sig- 
nificant glance at the priests), ask the high-priest Ameni 
if the unclean are henceforth to be permitted to enter 
this sanctuary.” 

He was already approaching the gate, but Pentaur 
stepped before him, saying resolutely : 

“You will remain here and keep the geese to-morrow, 
day after to-morrow, and until I choose to pardon you.” 

The gate-keeper looked enquiringly at the priests. 

Not one moved. 

“ Go back into your house,” said Pentaur, going 
closer to him. 

The porter obeyed. 

Pentaur locked the door of the little room^ gave the 
key to one of the temple-servants, and said : “ Perform 

his duty, watch the man, and if he escapes you will go 
after the geese to-morrow too. See, my friends, how 
many worshippers kneel there before our altars — go and 
fulfil your office. I will wait in the confessional to re- 
ceive complaints, and to administer comfort.” 

' The priests separated and went to the votaries. 


UARDA. 


207 


Pentaur once more mounted the steps, and sat down in 
the narrow confessional which was closed by a curtain ; 
on its wall the picture of Hatasu was to be seen, drawing 
the milk of eternal life from the udders of the cow Hathor.* 

He had hardly taken his place when a temple-servant** 
announced the arrival of a veiled lady. The bearers 
of her litter were thickly veiled, and she had requested 
to be conducted to the confession chamber. The servant 
handed Pentaur a token by which the high-priest of the ' 
great temple of Amon, on the* other bank of the Nile, 
granted her the privilege of entering the inner rooms of 
the temple with the Rechiu,*** and to communicate 
with all priests, even with the highest of the initiated. 

The poet withdrew behind a curtain, and awaited the 
stranger with a disquiet that seemed to him all the more 
singular that he had frequently found himself in a similar 
position. Even the noblest dignitaries had often been 
transferred to him by Ameni when they had come to the 
temple to have their visions interpreted. 

A tall female figure entered the still, sultry stone 
room, sank on her knees, and put up a long and absorbed 
prayer before the figure of Hathor. Pentaur also, seen 
by no one, lifted his hands, and fervently addressed him- 
self to the omnipresent spirit with a prayer for strength 
and purity. 

Just as his arms fell the lady raised her head. It 
was as though the prayers of the two souls had united 
to mount upwards together. 

The veiled lady rose and dropped her veil. 

* A remarkably life-like figure in relief, in perfect preservation. 

** The Neokori were the lowest order of the priesthood ; even the temple- 
servants belonged to it. 

*** Egyptians, who were admitted to the innermost chambers and the highest 
grades of learning. 


3o8 


UARDA 


It was Bent-Anat. 

In the agitation of her soul she had sought the 
goddess Hathor, who guides the beating heart of 
woman and spins the threads which bind man and 
wife. 

“ High mistress of heaven ! many-named and beau- 
tiful !” she began to pray aloud, “ golden Hathor ! who 
knowest grief and ecstasy — the present and the future — 
draw near to thy child, and guide the spirit of thy 
servant, that he may advise me well. I am the daughter 
of a father who is great and noble and truthful as one 
of the Gods. He advises me — ^he will never compel 
me — to yield to a man whom I can never love. Nay, 
another has met me, humble in birth/ but noble in 
spirit and in gifts — ” 

Thus far, Pentaur, incapable of speech, had over- 
heard the princess. 

Ought he to remain concealed and hear all her 
secret, or should he step forth and show himself to 
her? His pride called loudly to him: “Now she will 
speak your name ; you are the chosen one of the 
fairest and noblest.” But another voice to which 
he had accustomed himself to listen in severe self- 
discipline made itself heard, and said — “ Let her say 
nothing in ignorance, that, she need be ashamed of if 
she knew.” 

He blushed for her; — ^lie opened the curtain and 
went forward into the presence of Bent-Anat. 

The Princess drew back startled. 

“ Art thou Pentaur,” she asked, “ or one of the 
Immortals ?” 

“ I am Pentaur,” he answered firmly, “ a man with 
all the weakness of his race, but with a desire for 


UARDA 


209 


what is good. Linger here and pour out thy soul to 
our Goddess; my whole life shall be a prayer for 
thee.” 

'I’he poet looked full at her; then he turned quickly, 
as if to avoid a danger, towards the door of the con- 
fessional. 

Bent-Anat called his name, and he stayed his 
steps. 

“ The daughter of Rameses,” she said, “ need offer 
no justification of her appearance here, but the maiden 
Bent-Anat,” and she colored as she spoke, “ expected 
to find, not thee, but the old priest Rui, and she de- 
sired his advice. Now leave me to pray.” 

Bent-Anat sank on her knees, and Pentaur went 
out into the open air. 

When the princess too had left the confessional, 
loud voices were heard on the south side of the terrace 
on which they stood. 

She hastened towards the parapet. 

“ Hail to Pentaur!” was shouted up from below. 

The poet rushed forward, and placed himself near 
the princess. Both looked down into the valley, and 
could be seen by all. 

“ Hail, hail I Pentaur,” was called doubly loud, 
“ Hail to our teacher ! come back to the House of Seti. 
Down with the persecutors of Pentaur — down with 
our oppressors 1” 

At the head of the youths, who, so soon as they 
had found out whither the poet had been exiled, had 
escaped to tell him that they were faithful to him, 
stood the prince Rameri, who nodded triumphantly to 
his sister, and Anana stepped forward to inform the 


210 


UARDA. 


honored teacher in a solemn and well-studied speech, 
that, in the event of Ameni refusing to recall him, they 
had decided requesting their fathers to place them at 
another school. 

The young sage spoke well, and Bent-Anat fol- 
lowed his words, not without approbation; but Pen- 
taur’s face grew darker, and before his favorite dis- 
ciple had ended his speech he interrupted him sternly. 

His voice was at first reproachful, and then com- 
plaining, and, loud as he spoke, only sorrow rang in 
his tones, and not anger. 

“ In truth,” he concluded, “ every word that I have 
spoken to you I could but find it in me to regret, if 
it has contributed to encourage you to this mad act. 
You were born in palaces ; learn to obey, that later you 
may know how to command. Back to your school ! 
You hesitate? Then I will come out against you with 
the watchman, and drive you back, for you do me, and- 
yourselves small honor by such a proof of affection. 
Go back to the school you belong to.” 

The school-boys dared make no answer, but sur- 
prised and disenchanted turned to go home. 

Bent-Anat cast down her eyes as she met those of 
her brother, who shrugged his shoulders, and then she 
looked half shyly, half respectfully, at the poet; but 
soon again her eyes turned to the plain below, for thick 
dust-clouds whirled across it, the sound of hoofs and 
the rattle of wheels became audible, and at the same 
moment the chariot of Septah, the chief haruspex, and 
a vehicle with the heavily-armed guard of the House 
of Seti, stopped near the terrace. 

The angry old man sprang quickly to the ground. 


UARDA. 


21 1 


called the host of escaped pupils to him in a stem 
voice, ordered the guard to drive them back to the 
school, and hurried up to the temple gates like a 
vigorous youth. The priests received him with the 
deepest reverence, and at once laid their complaints 
before him. 

He heard them willingly, but did not let them dis- 
cuss the matter ; then, though with some difficulty, he 
quickly mounted the steps, down which Bent-Anat came 
towards him. 

The princess felt that she would divert all the 
blame and misunderstanding to herself, if Septah re- 
cognized her; her hand involuntarily reached for her 
veil, but she drew it back quickly, looked with quiet 
dignity into the old man’s eyes, which flashed with 
anger, and proudly passed by him. The haruspex 
bowed, but without giving her his blessing, and 
when he met Pentaur on the second terrace, ordered 
that the temple should be cleared of worshippers. 

This was done in a few minutes, and the priests 
were witnesses of the most painful scene which had 
occurred for years in their quiet sanctuary. 

The head of the haruspices of the House' of Seti 
was the most determined adversary ,of the poet who 
had so early been initiated into the mysteries, and 
whose keen intellect often shook those very ramparts 
which the zealous old man had, from conviction, 
labored to strengthen from his youth up. The vexa- 
tious occurrences, of which he had been a witness at 
the House of Seti, and here also but a few minutes 
since, he regarded as the consequence of the unbridled 
license of an ill-regulated imagination, and in stern Ian- 


212 


UARDA. 


guage he called Pentaur to account for the “ revolt ” of 
the school-boys. 

“ And besides our boys,” he exclaimed, “ you have 
led the daughter of Raineses astray. She was not yet 
purged of her uncleanness, and yet you tempt her to 
an assignation, not even in the stranger’s quarters — 
but in the holy house of this pure Divinity.” 

Undeserved praise is dangerous to the w'eak; unjust 
blame may turn even the strong from the right way. 

Pentaur indignantly repelled the accusations of the 
old man, called them unworthy of his age, his position, 
and his name, and for fear that his anger might carry 
him too far, turned his back upon him ; but the harus- 
pex ordered him to remain, and in his presence ques- 
tioned the priests, who unanimously accused the poet 
of having admitted to the temple another unpurified 
woman besides Bent-Anat, and of having expelled the 
gate-keeper and thrown him into prison for opposing 
the crime. 

The haruspex ordered that the “ ill-used man ” 
should be set at liberty. 

Pentaur resisted this command, asserted his right 
to govern in this temple, and with a trembling voice 
requested Septah to quit the place. 

The haruspex showed him Ameni’s ring, by which, 
during his residence in Thebes, he made him his pleni- 
potentiary, degraded Pentaur from his dignity, but 
ordered him not to quit the sanctuary till further notice, 
and then finally departed from the temple of Hatasu. 

Pentaur had yielded in silence to the signet of his 
chief, and returned to the confessional in which he 
had met Bent-Anat. He felt his soul shaken to its 
very foundations, his thoughts were confused, his feel* 


UARDA. 


213 


ings struggling with each other; he shivered, and when 
he heard the laughter of the priests and the gate- 
keeper, Avho were triumphing in their easy victory, he 
started and shuddered like a man who in passing a 
mirror should see a brand of disgrace on his brow. 

But by degrees he recovered himself, his spirit 
grew clearer, and when he left the little room to look 
towards the east — where, on the farther shore, rose the 
palace where Bent-Anat must be — a deep contempt 
for his enemies filled his soul, and a proud feeling of 
renewed manly energy. He did not conceal from him- 
self that he had enemies ; that a time of struggle was 
beginning for him ; but he looked forward to it like a 
young hero to the morning of his first battle. 


CHAPTER XV. 

The afternoon shadows were already growing long, 
when a splendid chariot drew up to the gates of the 
terrace-temple. Paaker, the chief pioneer, stood up in 
it, driving his handsome and fiery Syrian horses. Be- 
hind him stood an Ethiopian slave, and his big dog 
followed the swift team with his tongue out. 

As he approached the temple he heard himself 
called, and checked the pace of his horses. A tiny 
man hurried up to him, and, as soon as he had re- 
cognized in him the dwarf Nemu, he cried angrily: 

“ Is it for you, you rascal, that I stop my drive ? 
What do you want ?” 

“To crave,” said the little man, bowing humbly, 
“that, when thy business in the city of the dead is 
finished, thou wilt carry me back to Thebes.” 


214 


UARDA. 


“You are Mena’s dwarf?” asked the pioneer. 

“ By no means,” replied Nemu. “ I belong to his 
neglected wife, the lady Nefert. I can only cover the 
road very slowly with my little legs, while the hoofs of 
your horses devour the way — as a crocodile does his 
prey.” 

“ Get up !” said Paaker. “ Did you come here on 
foot ?” 

“ No, my lord,” replied Nemu, “on an ass; but a 
demon entered into the beast, and has struck it with 
sickness. I had to leave it on the road. The beasts 
of Anubis will have a better supper than we to-night.” 

“Things are not done handsomely then at your 
mistress’s house ?” asked Paaker. 

“ We still have bread,” replied Nemu, “ and the Nile 
is full of water. Much meat is not necessary for wo- 
men and dwarfs, but our last cattle take a form which 
is too hard for human teeth.” 

The pioneer did not understand the joke, arid 
looked enquiringly at the dwarf. 

“ The form of money,” said the little man, “ and 
that cannot be chewed ; soon that will be gone too, 
and then the point will be to find a recipe for making 
nutritious cakes out of earth, water, and palm-leaves. 
It makes very little difference to me, a dwarf does not 
need much — ^but the poor tender lady!” 

Paaker touched his horses with such a violent 
stroke of his whip that they reared high, and it took 
all his strength to control their spirit. 

“The horses’ jaws will be broken,” muttered the 
slave behind. “ What a shame with such fine beasts 1” 

“ Have you to pay for them ?” growled Paaker. 
Then he turned again to the dwarf, and asked — 


UARDA. 


215 


“ Why does Mena let the ladies want ?” 

“ He no longer cares for his wife,” replied the dwarf, 
casting his eyes down sadly. “At the last division of 
the spoil he passed by the gold and silver, and took 
a foreign woman into his tent. Evil demons have 
blinded him, for where is there a woman fairer than 
Nefert ?” 

“You love your mistress." 

“ As my very eyes !” 

During this conversation they had arrived at the 
terrace-temple. Paaker threw the reins to the slave, 
ordered him to wait with Nemu, and turned to the 
gate-keeper to explain to him, with the help of a hand- 
ful of gold, his desire of being conducted to Pentaur, 
the chief of the temple. 

The gate-keeper, swinging a censer before him 
with a hasty action, admitted him into the sanctuary. 

“ You will find him on the third terrace,” he said, 
“ but he is no longer our superior.” 

“ They said so in the temple of Seti, whence I have 
just come,” replied Paaker. 

The porter shrugged his shoulders with a sneer, and 
said : “ The palm-tree that is quickly set up falls down 
more quickly still.” Then he desired a servant to con- 
duct the stranger to Pentaur. 

The poet recognized the Mohar at once, asked his 
will, and learned that he was come to have a wonderful 
vision interpreted by him. 

Paaker explained before relating his dream, that 
he did not ask this service for nothing; and whon the 
priest’s countenance darkened he added: 

“ I will send a fine beast for sacrifice to the Goddess 
if the interpretation is favorable.” 


2i6 


UARD\. 


“ And in the opposite case ?” asked Pentaur, who, in 
the House of Seti, never would have anything whatever 
to do with the payments of the worshippers or the offer- 
ings of the devout. 

“ I will offer a sheep,” replied Paaker> who did not 
perceive the subtle irony that lurked in Pentaur’s words, 
and who was accustomed to pay for the gifts of the 
Divinity in proportion to their value to himself. 

Pentaur thought of the verdict which Gagabu, only 
two evenings since, had passed on the Mohar, and it 
occurred to him that he would test how far the man’s 
superstition would lead him. So he asked, while he 
suppressed a smile : 

“ And if I can foretell nothing bad, but also nothing 
actually good ?” — 

“ An antelope, and four geese,” answered Paaker 
promptly. 

“ But if I were altogether disinclined to put myself 
at your service ?” asked Pentaur. “ If I thought it un- 
worthy of a priest to let the Gods be paid in proportion 
to their favors towards a particular person, like cor- 
rupt officials ; if I now showed you — you — and I have 
known you from a school-boy, that there are things that 
cannot be bought with inherited wealth ?” 

The pioneer drew back astonished and angry, but 
Pentaur continued calmly — 

“ I stand here as the minister of the Divinity ; and 
nevertheless, I see by your countenance, that you were 
on the point of lowering yourself by showing to me 
your violent and extortionate spirit. 

“The Immortals send us dreams, not to give us a 
foretaste of joy or caution us against danger, but to re- 
mind us so to prepare our souls that we may submit 


UARDA. 


217 


quietly to suffer evil, and with heartfelt gratitude accept 
the good; and so gain from each profit for the inner 
life. I will not interpret your dream! Come without 
gifts, but with a humble heart, and with longing for in- 
ward purification, and I will pray to the Gods that they 
may enlighten me, and give you such interpretation of 
even evil dreams that they may be fruitful in bless- 
ing. 

Leave me, and quit the temple!” 

Paaker ground his teeth Avith rage; but he con- 
trolled himself, and only said as he slowly withdrew . 

^‘If your office had not already been taken from 
you, the insolence wdth which you have dismissed me 
might have cost you your place. We shall meet again, 
and then you shall learn that inherited wealth in the 
right hand is Avorth more than you Avill like.” 

“Another enemy!” thought the poet, when he found 
himself alone and stood erect in the glad consciousness 
of having done right. 

During Paaker’s intervieAv with the poet, the dwarf 
Nemu had chatted to the porter, and had learned 
from him all that had previously occurred. 

Paaker mounted his chariot pale with rage, and 
AA'hipped on his horses before the dAvarf had clambered 
up the step; but the slave seized the little man, and 
set him carefully on his feet behind his master. 

“The villian, the scoundrel! he shall repent it — 
Pentaur is he called! the hound!” muttered the pioneer 
to himself 

The dwarf lost none of his Avords, and when he 
caught the name of Pentaur he called to the pioneer, 
and said — 

15 


2i8 


UARDA. 


“They have appointed a scoundrel to be the supe- 
rior of this temple; his name is Pentaur. He was ex- 
pelled from the temple of Seti for his immorality, and 
now he has stirred up the younger scholars to rebellion, 
and invited unclean women into the temple. My lips 
hardly dare repeat it, but the gate-keeper swore it was 
true — that the chief haruspex from the House of Seti 
found him in conference with Bent-Anat, the king’s 
daughter, and at once deprived him of his office.” 

“With Bent-Anat?” replied the pioneer, and muttered, 
before the dwarf could find time to answer, “Indeed, 
with Bent-Anat !” and he recalled the day before yester- 
day, when the princess had remained so long with the 
priest in the hovel of the paraschites, while he had 
talked to Nefert and visited the old witch. 

“T should not care to be in the priest’s skin,” ob- 
served Nemu, “for though Raineses is far away, the 
Regent Ani is near enough. He is a gentleman who 
seldom pounces, but even the dove won’t allow itself to 
be attacked in its own nest.” 

Paaker looked enquiringly at Nemu. 

“ I know,” said the dwarf, Ani has asked Rameses* 
consent to marry his daughter.” 

“He has already asked it,” continued the dwarf as 
Paaker smiled incredulously, “ and the king is not dis- 
inclined to give it. He likes making marriages-r-as 
thou must know pretty well.” 

“ I ?” said Paaker, surprised. 

“ He forced Katuti to give her daughter as wife to 
the charioteer. That I know from herself. She can 
prove it to thee.” 

Paaker shook his head in denial, but the dwarf con- 
tinued eagerly, “ Yes, yes! Katuti would have had thee 


UARDA. 


219 


for her son-in-law, and it was the king, not she, who 
broke off the betrothal. Thou must at the same time 
have been inscribed in the black books of the ‘high 
gate,’ for Rameses used many hard names for thee. 
One of us is like a mouse behind the curtain, which 
knows a good deal.” 

Paaker suddenly brought his horses to a stand-still, 
threw the reins to the slave, sprang from the chariot, 
called the dwarf to his side, and said: 

“We will walk from here to the river, and you 
shall tell me all you know; but if an untrue word 
passes your lips I will have you eaten by my dogs.” 

“ I know thou canst keep thy word,” gasped the 
little man. “ But go a little slower if thou wilt, for I 
am quite out of breath. Let Katuti herself tell thee 
how it all came about. Rameses compelled her to give 
her daughter to the charioteer. I do not know what he 
said of thee, but it was not complimentary. My poor 
mistress ! she let herself be caught by the dandy, the 
ladies’ man — and now she may weep and wail. When 
I pass the great gates of thy house with Katuti, she 
often sighs and complains bitterly. And with good 
reason, for it soon will be all over with our noble es- 
tate, and we must seek an asylum far away among the 
Amu* in the low lands; for the nobles will soon avoid 
us as outcasts. Thou mayst be glad that thou hast 
not linked thy fate to ours; but I have a faithful heart, 
and will share my mistress’s trouble.” 

“You speak riddles,” said Paaker, “what have they 
to fear?” 

* A Semitic tribe, who at the time of our story peopled the eastern delta. 
See '“Ailgypten und die Bucher Moses,” Ebers, and the second edition of 
” Histoire de TEgypte” by Brugsch. The name Bi-amites comes from the old 
name Amu. 


220 


UARDA. 


The dwarf now related how Nefert’s brother had 
gambled away the mummy of his father, how enor- 
mous was the sum he had lost, and that degradation 
must overtake Katuti, and her daughter with her. 

“Who can save them,” he whimpered. “ Her shame- 
less husband squanders his inheritance and his prize- 
money. Katuti is poor, and the little words “Give 
me!’ scare away friends as the cry of a hawk scares 
the chickens. My poor mistress!” 

“ It is a large sum,” muttered Paaker to himself. 

“It is enormous!” sighed the dwarf, “and where is 
it to be found in these hard times? It would have 
been different with us, if — ah if — . And it would be a 
form of madness which I do not believe in, that Nefert 
should still care for her braggart husband. She thinks 
as much of thee as of him.” 

Paaker looked at the dwarf half incredulous and half 
threatening. 

, “Ay — of thee,” repeated Nemu. “Since our ex- 
cursion to the Necropolis — the day before yesterday it 
was — she speaks only of thee, praising thy ability, and 
thy strong manly spirit. It is as if some charm obliged 
her to think of thee.” 

The pioneer began to walk so fast that his small 
companion once more had to ask him to moderate his 
steps. 

They gained the shore in silence, where Paaker’s 
boat was waiting, which also conveyed his chariot. 
He lay down in the little cabin, called the dwarf to 
him, and said; 

“ 1 am Katuti’s nearest relative; we are now recon- 
ciled ; why does she not turn to me in her difficulty ?” 

“ Because she is proud, and thy blood flows in her 


UARDA. 


221 


veins. Sooner would she die with her child — she said so 
— than ask thee, against whom she sinned, for an alms.” 

“ She did think of me then ?” 

“ At once ; nor did she doubt thy generosity. She 
esteems thee highly — I repeat it ; and if an arrow from 
a Cheta’s bow or a visitation of the Gods attained 
Mena, she would joyfully place her child in thine arms, 
and Nefert believe me has not forgotten her playfellow. 
The day before yesterday, when she came home from 
the Necropolis, and before the letter had come from 
the camp, she was full of thee* — nay called to thee in 
her dreams ; I know it from Kandake, her black maid.” 

The pioneer looked down and said : 

“ How extraordinary ! and the same night I had a 
vision in which your mistress appeared to me ; the inso- 
lent priest in the temple of Hathor should have inter- 
preted it to me.” 

“ And he refused ? the fool ! but other folks under- 
stand dreams, and I am not the worst of them — Ask 
thy servant. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred my 
interpretations come true. How was the vision ?” 

“ I stood by the Nile,” said Paaker, casting down 
his eyes and drawing lines with his whip through the 
wool of the cabin rug. “ The water was still, and I 
saw Nefert standing on the farther bank, and beckon- 
ing to me. I called to her, and she stepped on the 
water, which bore her up as if it were this carpet. She 
went over the water dry-foot as if it were the stony 
wilderness. A wonderful sight ! She came nearer to me, 
and nearer, and already I had tried to take her hand, 
when she ducked under like a swan. I went into the 

* “ To be full (meh) of any one ” is used in the Egyptian language for “ to 
be in love with any one.” 


222 


UARDA. 


water to seize her, and when she came up agnin I 
clasped her in my arms ; but then the strangest thing 
happened — she flowed away, she dissolved like the 
snow on the Syrian hills, when you take it in your 
hand, and yet it was not the same, for her hair turned 
to water-lilies, and her eyes to blue fishes that swam 
away merrily, and her lips to twigs of coral that sank 
at once, and from her body grew a crocodile, with a 
head like Mena, that laughed and gnashed its teeth at 
me. Then I was seized with blind fury ; I threw my- 
self upon him with a drawn sword, he fastened his 
teeth in my flesh, I pierced his throat with my weapon ; 
the Nile was dark with our streaming blood, and so 
we fought and fought — it lasted an eternity — till I 
awoke.” 

Paaker drew a deep breath as he ceased speaking ; 
as if his wild dream tormented him again. 

The dwarf had listened with eager attention, but 
several minutes passed before he spoke. 

“ A strange dream,” he said, “ but the interpretation 
as to the future is not hard to find. Nefert is striving 
to reach thee, she longs to be thine, but if thou dost 
fancy that she is already in thy grasp she will elude 
thee ; thy hopes will melt like ice, slip away like sand, 
if thou dost not know how to put the crocodile out of 
the way.” 

At this moment the boat struck the landing-place. 
The pioneer started up, and cried, “We have reached 
the end !” 

“ We have reached the end,” echoed the little man 
with meaning. “ There is only a narrow bridge to step 
over.” 

When tney both stood on the shore, the dwarf said, 


UARDA. 


223 


“ I have to thank thee for thy hospitality, and 
when I can serve thee command me.” 

“ Come here,” cried the pioneer, and drew Nemu 
away with him under the shade of a sycamore veiled 
in the half light of the departing sun. 

“ What do you mean by a bridge which we must 
step over ? I do not understand the flowers of speech, 
and desire plain language.” 

The dwarf reflected for a moment, and then asked — 

“ Shall I say nakedly and openly what I mean, and 
will you not be angry ?‘* 

“ Speak 1” 

“ Mena is the crocodile. Put him out of the world, 
and you will have passed the bridge; then Nefert will 
be thine — ^if thou wilt listen to me.” 

“What shall I do?” 

“ Put the charioteer out of the world.” 

Paaker’s gesture seemed to convey that that was a 
thing that had long been decided on, and he turned 
his face, for a good omen, so that the rising moon 
should be on his right hand. 

The dwarf went on. 

“ Secure Nefert, so that she may not vanish like her 
image in the dream, before you reach the goal ; that is 
to say, ransom the honor of your future mother and 
wife, for how could you take an outcast into your 
house ?” 

Paaker looked thoughtfully at the ground. 

“ May I inform my mistress that thou wilt save her?” 
asked Nemu, “ I may ? — Then all will be well, for he 
who will devote a fortune to love will not hesitate to 
devote a reed lance with a brass point to it to his love 
and his hatred together.” 


224 


UARDA. 


CHAPTER XVL 


The sun had set, and darkness covered the City of 
the Dead ; but the moon shone above the valley of the 
kings’ tombs, and the projecting masses of the rocky 
walls of the chasm threw sharply-defined shadows. 
A weird silence lay upon the desert, where yet far more 
life was stirring than in the noonday hour, for now bats 
darted like black silken threads through the night air, 
owls hovered aloft on wide-spread wings, small troops 
of jackals slipped by, one following the other up the 
mountain slopes. From time to, time their hideous 
yell, or the whining laugh of the hyena, broke the 
stillness of the night.’ 

Nor was human life yet at rest in the valley of 
tombs. A faint light glimmered in the cave of the sor- 
ceress Hekt, and in front of the paraschites’ hut a fire 
was burning, which the grandmother of the sick Uarda 
now and then fed with pieces of dry manure. Two 
men were seated in front of the hut, and gazed in 
silence on the thin flame, whose impure light was al- 
most- quenched by the clearer glow of the moon ; whilst 
the third, Uarda’s father, disembowelled a large ram, 
whose head he had already cut off. 

“ How the jackals howl !” said the old paraschites, 
drawing as he spoke the torn brown cotton cloth, which 
he had put on as a protection against the night air 
and the dew, closer round his bare shoulders. 

“ They scent the fre.sh meat”answered the physician, 


UARDA. 


225 


Nebsecht. “Throw them the entrails, when you have 
done; the legs and back you can roast. Be careful 
how you cut out the heart — the heart, soldier. There 
it is ! What a great beast.” 

Nebsecht took the ram’s heart in his hand, and 
gazed at it with the deepest attention, whilst the old 
paraschites watched him anxiously. At length : 

“ I promised,” he said, “ to do for you what you 
wish, if you restore the little one to health ; but you 
ask for what is impossible.” 

“ Impossible ?” said the physician, “ why, impossible ? 
You open the corpses, you go in and out of the house 
of the embalmer. Get possession of one of the canopi,* 
lay this heart in it, and take out in its stead the heart 
of a human being. No one — no one will notice it. 
Nor need you do it to-morrow, or the day after to- 
morrow even. Your son can buy a ram to kill every 
day with my money till the right moment comes. Your 
granddaughter will soon grow strong on a good meat- 
diet. Take courage!” 

“ I am not afraid of the danger,” said the old man, 
“ but how can I venture to steal from a dead man his 
life in the other world? And then — in shame and 
misery have I lived, and for many a year — no man has 
numbered them for me — have I obeyed the command- 
ments, that I may be found righteous in that world to 


* Vases of clay, limestone, or alabaster, which were used for the preserva- 
tion of the intestines of the embalmed Eg>’ptians, and represented the four 
genii of death, Amset, Hapi, Tuamutef, and Khebsennuf Instead of the 
cover, the head of the genius to which it was dedicated, was placed on each 
kanopus. Amset (under the protection of Isis) has a human head, Hapi (pro- 
tected by Nephthys) an ape’s head, Tuamutef (protected by Neith) a jackal’s 
head, and Khebsennuf (protected by Selk) a sparrow-hawk’s head. In one of 
the Christian Coptic Manuscripts, the four archangels are invoked in the place 
of these ^enji. 


226 


UARDA. 


come, and in the fields of Aalu, and in the Sun-bark 
find compensation for all that I have suffered here. 
You are good and friendly. Why, for the sake of a 
whim, should you sacrifice the future bliss of a man, 
who in all his long life has never known happiness, 
and who has never done you any harm ?” 

“ What I want with the heart,” replied the physician, 
“ you cannot understand, but in procuring it for me, 
you will be furthering a great and useful purpose. I 
have no whims, for I am no idler. And as to what 
concerns your salvation, have no anxiety. I am a 
priest, and take your deed and its consequences upon 
myself; upon myself, do you understand? I tell you, 
as a priest, that what I demand of you is right, and if 
the judge of the dead shall enquire, ‘ Why didst thou 
take the heart of a human being out of the Kanopus ?’ 
then reply — reply to him thus, ‘ Because Nebsecht, the 
priest, commanded me, and promised himself to answer 
for the deed.’ ” 

The old man gazed thoughtfully on the ground, and 
the physician continued still more urgently : 

“If you fulfil my wish, then — then I swear to you 
that, when you die, I will take care that your mummy 
is provided with all the amulets, and I myself will write 
you a book of the Entrance into Day,* and have it 
wound within your mummy-cloth, as is done with the 
great.** That will give you power over all demons, 
and you will be admitted to the hall of the twofold 
justice, which punishes and rewards, and your award 
will be bliss.” 

* The first section of the so-called Tlook of the Dead is thus entitled. The 
couiniencement : Ha eni re’ein per ein hru, led the Greeks to speak of a book of 
the Egyptians, called “ 'J’he Holy Ambre.s.” 

The Books of the Dead are often found amongst the cloths, (by the leg or 
under the arm), or else in the coffin under, or near, the mummy. 


TJARDA. 


227 


“ But the theft of a heart will make the weight of 
my sins heavy, when my own heart is weighed,” sighed 
the old man. 

Nebsecht considered for a moment, and then said: 
“ I will give you a written paper, in which I will certify 
that it was I who commanded the theft. You will sew 
it up in a little bag, carry it on your breast, and have 
it laid with you in the grave. Then when Techuti, 
the agent of the soul, receives your justification before 
Osiris and the judges of the dead,* give him the 
writing. He will read it aloud, and you will be ac- 
counted just.” 

“ I am not learned in writing,” muttered the para- 
schites with a slight mistrust that made itself felt in his 
voice. 

“ But I swear to you by the nine great Gods, that 
I will write nothing on the paper but what I have 
promised you. I will confess that I, the priest Nebsecht, 
commanded you to take the heart, and that your guilt 
is mine.” 

“ I^et me have the writing then,” murmured the old 
man. 

The physician wiped the perspiration from his 
forehead, and gave the paraschites his hand. “ To-mor- 
row you shall have it,” he said, “ and I will not leave 
your granddaughter till she is well again.” 


* The vignettes of Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead represent the 
I^t Judgment of the Egyptians. Under a canopy Osiris sits enthrcmed as 
Chief Judge, 42 assessors assist him. In the hall stand the scales; the dog- 
headed ape, the animal sacred to Toth, guides the balance. In one scale lies 
the heart of the dead man, in the other the image of the goddess of Truth, 
who Introduces the soul into the hall of justice Toth writes the record. The 
soul affirms that it has not committed 42 deadly sins, and if it obtains credit, it 
is named “maa cheru,” /. e., “the truth-speaker,’’ and is therewith declared 
blessed. It now receives its heart back, and gro>v's into a pew and divine life. 


228 


UARDA. 


The soldier engaged in cutting up the ram, had 
heard nothing of this conversation. Now he ran a 
wooden spit through the legs, and held them over the 
fire to roast them. The jackals howled louder as the 
smell of the melting fat filled the air, and the old man, 
as he looked on, forgot the terrible task he had under- 
taken. For a year past, no meat had been tasted in 
his house. 

The physician Nebsecht, himself eating nothing but 
a piece of bread, looked on at the feasters. They tore 
the meat from the bones, and the soldier, especially, 
devoured the costly and unwonted meal like some 
ravenous animal. He could be heard chewing like a 
horse in the manger, and a feeling of disgust filled 
the physician’s soul. 

“ Sensual beings,” he murmured to himself, “ animals 
with consciousness ! And yet human beings. Strange ! 
They languish bound in the fetters of the world of 
sense, and yet how much more ardently they desire 
that which transcends sense than we — how much more 
real it is to them than to us !” 

“Will you have some meat?” cried the soldier, 
who had remarked that Nebsecht’s lips moved, and 
tearing a piece of meat from the bone of the joint he 
was devouring, he held it out to the physician. 
Nebsecht shrank back; the greedy look, the glistening 
teeth, the dark, rough features of the man terrified 
him. And he thought of the white and fragile form 
of the sick girl lying within on the mat, and a ques- 
tion escaped his lips. 

“ Is the maiden, is Uarda, your own child ?” he 
said. 


UARDA. 


229 


The soldier struck himself on the breast. “So 
sure as the king Raineses is the son of Seti,” he answered. 

The men had finished their meal, and the flat 
cakes of bread which the wife of the paraschites gave 
them, and on which they had wiped their hands from the 
fat, were consumed, when the soldier, in whose slow 
brain the physician’s question still lingered, said, sigh- 
ing deeply: 

“ Her mother was a stranger; she laid the white 
dove in the raven’s nest.” 

“ Of what country was your wife a native ? ” asked 
the physician. 

“ That I do not know,” replied the soldier. 

“ Did you never enquire about the family of your 
own wife?” 

“ Certainly I did : but how could she have answered 
me? But it is a long and strange story.” 

“Relate it to me,” said Nebsecht, “the night is 
long, and I like listening better than talking. But 
first I will see after our patient.” 

When the physician had satisfied himself that 
Uarda was sleeping quietly and breathing regularly, 
he seated himself again by the paraschites and his son, 
and the soldier began; 

“ It all happened long ago. King Seti still lived, 
but Raineses already reigned in his stead, when I 
came home from the north. They had sent me to 
the workmen, who were building the fortifications in 
Zoan, the town of Rameses.* I was set over six 
men, Amus,** of the Hebrew race, over whom 

* 'I'he Rameses of the Bible. Exodus I. ii. 

’'■* Semites. 


UARt)A. 


236 

Rameses kept such a tight hand.* Amongst the work- 
men there were sons of rich cattle-holders, for in levying 
the people it was never : ‘ What have you ?’ but ‘ Of 
what race are you ?’ The fortifications and the canal 
which was to join the Nile and the Red Sea had to be 
completed, and the king, to whom be long life, health, 
and prosperity, took the youth of Egypt with him to the 
wars, and left the work to the Amus, who are connected 
by race with his enemies in the east. One lives well in 
Goshen, for it is a fine country, with more than enough 
of com and grass and vegetables and fish and fowls,** 
and I always had of the best, for amongst my six people 
were two mother’s darlings, whose parents sent me 
many a piece of silver. Every one loves his children, 
but the Hebrews love them more tenderly than other 
people. We had daily our appointed tale of bricks to 
deliver,*** and when the sun. burnt hot, I used to help 
the lads, and I did more in an hour than they did in 
three, for I am strong and was still stronger then than I 
am now. 

“ Then came the time when I was relieved. I was 
ordered to return to Thebes, to the prisoners of war 
who were building the great temple of Amon over 
yonder, and as I had brought home some money, and 
it would take a good while to finish the great dwelling 
of the king of the Gods, I thought of taking a wife ; but 
no Egyptian. Of daughters of paraschites there were 
plenty ; but I wanted to get away out of my father’s 
accursed caste, and the other girls here, as T knew, were 

* For an account of the traces of the Jews in Egypt, see Chabas, Me- 
langes, and Ebers, ^Egypten und die Bucher Moses, also Durch Gozen zum Sinai. 

** See Ebers’ “ Durch Gosen zum Sinai,” for account of Goshen and its 
mention on the monuments. The charms of this landscape are highly praised in 
a letter written by a clerk to his superior. 

*** Exodus I., 13 and 14. Exodus V., 7 and 8. 


XJAR-bA. 


afraid of our iin cleanness. In the low country I had 
done better, and many an Amu and Schasu woman had 
gladly come to my tent. From the beginning I had set 
my mind on an Asiatic. 

“ Many a time maidens taken prisoners in war were 
brought to be sold, but either they did not please me, 
or they were too dear. Meantime my money melted 
away, for we enjoyed life in the time of rest which 
followed the working hours. There were dancers too 
in plenty, in the foreign quarter. 

“ Well, it was just at the time of the holy feast of 
Amon-Chem, that a new transport of prisoners of war 
arrived, and amongst them many women, who were 
sold publicly to the highest bidder. The young and 
beautiful ones were paid for high, but even the older 
ones were too dear for me. 

“ Quite at the last a blind woman was led forward, 
and a withered-looking woman who was dumb, as the 
auctioneer, who generally praised up the merits of the 
prisoners, informed the buyers. The blind woman had 
strong hands, and was bought by a tavern-keeper, for 
whom she turns the handmill to this day ; — the dumb 
woman held a child in her arms, and no one could tell 
whether she was young or old. She looked as though 
she already lay in her coffin, and the little one as 
though he would go under the grass before her. And 
her hair was red, burning red, the very color of Typhon. 
Her white pale face looked neither bad nor good, only 
weary, weary to death. On her withered white arms 
blue veins ran like dark cords, her hands hung feebly 
down, and in them hung the child. If a wind were to 
rise, I thought to myself, it would blow her away, and 
the little one with her. 


232 


UARDA. 


“ The auctioneer asked for a bid. All were silent, 
for the dumb shadow was of no use for work; she was 
half-dead, and a burial costs money. 

“So passed several minutes. Then the auctioneer 
stepped up to her, and gave her a blow with his whip, 
that she might rouse herself up, and appear less 
miserable to the buyers. She shivered like a person 
in a fever, pressed the child closer to her, and looked 
round at every one as though seeking for help — and me 
full in the face. What happened now was a real 
wonder, for her eyes were bigger than any that I ever 
saw, and a demon dwelt in them that had power over 
me and ruled me to the end, and that day it be- 
witched me for the first time. 

“ It was not hot and I had drunk nothing, and yet 
I acted against my own will and better judgment when, 
as her eyes fell upon me,' I bid all that I possessed 
in order to buy her. I might have had her cheaper! 
My companions laughed at me, the auctioneer shrugged 
his shoulders as he took my money, but I took the child 
on my arm, helped the woman up, carried her in a 
boat over the Nile, loaded a stone-cart with my miser- 
able property, and drove her like a block c f lime home 
to the old people. 

“ My mother shook her head, and my father looked 
as if he thought me mad; but neither of them said a 
word. • They made up a bed for her, and on my spare 
nights I built that ruined thing hard by — it was a 
tidy hut once. Soon my mother grew fond of the 
child. It was quite small, and we called it Pennu* 
because it was so pretty, like a little mouse. I kept 
away from the foreign quarter, and saved my wages, 

* Pennu is the name for the mouse in old Egyptian, 


Uarda. ^33 

and bought a goat, which lived in front of our door 
when 1 took the woman to her own hut. 

“ She was dumb, but not deaf, only she did not 
understand our language ; but the demon in her eyes 
spoke for her and understood what I said. She com- 
prehended everything, and could say everything with 
her eyes ; but best of all she knew how to thank one. 
No high-priest who at the great hill festival praises the 
Gods in long hymns for their gifts can return thanks 
so earnestly with his lips as she with her dumb eyes. 
And when she wished to pray, then it seemed as 
though the demon in her look was mightier than 
ever. 

“ At first I used to be impatient enough when she 
leaned so feebly against the wall, or when the child 
cried and disturbed my sleep; but she had only to 
look up, arid the demon pressed my heart together and 
persuaded me that the crying was really a song. Pennu 
cried more sweetly too than other children, and he 
had such soft, white, pretty little fingers. 

“ One day he had been crying for a long time. At 
last I bent down over him, and was going to scold him, 
but he seized (me by the beard. It was pretty to see ! 
Afterwards he was for ever wanting to pull me about, 
and his mother noticed that that pleased me, for when 
I brought home anything good, an egg or a flower or 
a cake, she used to hold him up and place his little 
hands on my beard. 

“ Yes, in a few months the woman had learnt to 
hold him up high in her arms, for with care and 
quiet she had grown stronger. White she always re- 
mained and delicate, but she grew younger and more 


^34 


rARDA; 


beautiful from day to day ; she can hardly have nlim^ 
bered twenty years when I bought her. What she was 
called I never heard ; nor did we give her any name. 
She was ‘ the woman/ and so we called her. 

“ Eight moons ])assed by, and then the little Mouse 
died. I wept as she did, and as I bent over the little 
corpse and let my tears have free course, and thought — 
now he can never lift up his pretty little finger to you 
again ; then I felt for the first time the woman’s soft 
hand on my cheek. She stroked my rough beard as. 
a child might, and with that looked at me so grate- 
fully that I felt as though king Pharaoh had all 
at once made me a present of both Upper and Lower 
Egypt. 

“ When the Mouse was burled she got weaker again, 
but my mother took good care of her. I lived with 
her, like a father with his child. She was always 
friendly, but if I approached her, and tried to show 
her any fondness, she would look at me, and the demon 
in her eyes drove me back, and I let her alone. 

“She grew healthier and stronger and more and 
more beautiful, so beautiful that I kept her hidden, 
and was consumed by the longing to make her my 
wife. A good housewife she never became, to be 
sure ; her h5nds were so tender, and she did not even 
know how to milk the goat. My mother did that and 
everything else for her. 

“ In the daytime she stayed in her hut and worked, 
for she was very skillful at woman’s work, and wove 
lace as fine as cobwebs, which my mother sold that 
she might bring home perfumes with the proceeds. 
She was very fond of them, and of flowers too; and 
Uarda in there takes after her. 


UARDA. 


235 


In the evening, when the folk from the other side 
had left the City of the Dead, she would often walk 
up and down the valley here, thoughtful and often 
looking up at the moon, which she was especially 
fond of. 

“ One evening in the winter-time I came home. It 
was already dark, and I expected to find her in front 
of the door. All at once, about a hundred steps be- 
hind ’old Hekt’s cave, I heard a troop of jackals bark- 
ing so furiously that I said to myself directly they had 
attacked a human being, and I knew too who it was, 
though no one had told me, and the woman could not 
call or cry out. Frantic with terror, I tore a firebrand 
from the hearth and the stake to which the goat was 
fastened out of the ground, rushed to her help, drove 
away the beasts, and carried her back senseless to the 
hut. My mother helped me, and we called her back 
to life. When we were alone, I wept like a child for 
joy at her escape;^ and she let me kiss her, and then 
she became my wife, three years after I had bought 
her. 

“ She bore me a little maid, that she herself named 
Uarda; for she showed us a rose, and then pointed to 
the child, and we understood her without words. 

“ Soon afterwards she died. 

“You are a priest, but 1 tell you that when I am 
summoned before Osiris, if I am admitted amongst 
the blessed, I will ask whether I shall meet my wife, 
and if the doorkeeper says no, he may thrust me back, 
and I will go down cheerfully to the damned, if I find 
her again there.” 

“ And did no sign ever betray her origin ? ” asked 
the physician. 


236 


UARDA. 


The soldier had hidden his face in his hands ; he 
was weeping aloud, and did not hear the question. 
But the paraschites answered : 

“ She was the child of some great personage, for in 
her clothes we found a golden jewel with a precious 
stone inscribed with strange characters. It is very 
costly, and my wife is keeping it for the little one.” 

CHAPTER XVII. 

In the earliest glimmer of dawn the following day, 
the physician Nebsecht having satisfied himself as to 
the state of the sick girl, left the paraschites’ hut and 
made his way in deepest thought to the Terrace Temple 
of Hatasu, to find his friend Pentaur and compose the 
writing which he had promised to the old man. 

As the sun arose in radiance he reached the sanctu- 
ary. He expected to hear the morning song of the 
, priests, but all was silent. He knocked and the porter, 
still half-asleep, opened the door. 

Nebsecht enquired for the chief of the Temple. 

“ He died in the night,” said the man yawning. 

“ What do you say ? ” cried the physician in sudden 
terror, “ who is dead ?” 

“ Our good old chief, Rui.” 

Nebsecht breathed again, and asked for Pentaur. 

“ You belong to the House of Seti,” said the door- 
keeper, “ and you do not know that he is deposed 
from his office ? The holy fathers have refused to 
celebrate the birth of Ra with him. He sings for him- 
self now, alone up on the watch-tower. There you 
will find him.” 


UARDA. 


237 


Nebsecht strode quickly up the stairs. Several of 
the priests placed themselves together in groups as 
soon as they saw him, and began singing. He paid 
no heed to them, however, but hastened on to the 
uppermost terrace, where he found his friend occupied 
in writing. 

Soon he learnt all that had happened, and wrath- 
fully he cried: “You are too honest for those wise 
gentlemen in the House of Seti, and too pure and 
zealous for the rabble here. I knew it, I knew what 
would come of it if they introduced you to the myste- 
ries. For us initiated there remains only the choice 
between lying and silence.” 

“ The old error !” said Pentaur, “ we know that the 
Godhead is One, we name it, ‘The All,’* ‘The Veil of 
the All,’** or simply ‘ Ra.’ But under the name Ra we 
understand something different than is known to the 
common herd; for to us, the Universe is God, and in 
each of its parts we recognize a manifestation of that 
highest being without whom nothing is, in the heights 
above or in the depths below.” • 

“To me you can say everything, for I also am ini- 
tiated,” interrupted Nebsecht. 

♦ The sacred text repeatedly calls God the “ One," the " only One." The 
pantheistic teaching of the Mysteries is most clearly expressed in those texts 
which are found in almost all the Kings’ tombs in Thebes, and on the walls of 
the entrance halls. They have been collected, and contain praises to Ra, 
whose 75 principal manifestations are invoked. These texts and the pantheism 
in the esoteric teaching of the Egyptians are excellently and comprehensively 
treated by E. Naville in "La Litanie du Soleil.” The Text of the Book of 
Death, the Hymn to the Sun preserved at Bulaq, and treated by Stem and 
Grebaut, the inscriptions on the sarcophagi and on the walls of the Temple of 
Ptolemy, and second in order to these, Plutarch’s Treatise on Isis and Osiris, 
the Egyptian Mysteries of Tamblichus, and the Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus 
on the Human Soul, are the principal sources for the study of the secret teach- 
ing of the Egyptl ms. 'I'he views brought forward and developed in these dis- 
courses seem first to have come to perfection in the new kingdom. I’he Egyp- 
tian religion proceeded from a comparatively rude Sun and Nile ^'orship. 

** Teb temt. With a similar meaning Eusebius gives to the universe the 
form of a Gieek Theta (0). 


UARDA. 




“ But neither from the laity do I withhold it,” cried 
Pentaur, only to 'those who are incapable of under- 
standing the whole, do I show the different parts. Am 
I a liar if I do not say, ‘ I speak,’ but ‘ my mouth speaks,’ 
if I affirm, ‘Your eye sees,’ when it is you yourself 
who are the seer. When the light of the only One 
manifests itself, then I fervently render thanks to him 
in hymns, and the most luminous of his forms I name 
Ra. When I look upon yonder green fields, I call 
upon the faithful to give thanks to Rennut,* that is, 
that active manifestation of the One, through which 
the corn attains to its ripe maturity. Am I filled with 
wonder at the bounteous gifts with which that divine 
stream whose origin- is hidden, blesses our land, then 
I adore the One as the God Hapi,** the secret one. 
Whether we view the sun, the harvest, or the Nile, 
whether we contemplate with admiration the unity and 
harmony of the visible or invisible world, still it is 
always with the Only, the All-embracing One we have 
to do, to whom we also ourselves belong as those 
of his manifestations in which he places his self- 
consciousness. The imagination of the multitude is 
limited ” 

“And so we lions,*** give them the morsel that 
we can devour at one gulp, finely chopped up, and 
diluted with broth as if for the weak stomach of a 
sick man.” 

“ Not so; we only feel it our duty to temper and 
sweeten the sharp potion, which for men even is almost 

* Goddess of the harvest. 

** The Nile. 

*** “ The priests,” says Clement of Alexandria, “ allow none to be partici- 
pators in their mysteries, except kings or such amongst themselves as are dis- 
toguished for virtue or wisdom.” The same thing is shown by the monuments 
in many places. 


UARDA. 


239 


too Strong, before we offer it to the children, the babes 
in spirit. The sages of old veiled indeed the highest 
truths in allegorical forms, in symbols, and finally in a 
beautiful and richly-colored mythos, but they brought 
them near to the multitude shrouded it is true but still 
discernible.” 

“ Discernible ?” said the physician, “ discernible ? 
Why then the veil ?” 

“ And do you imagine that the multitude could look 
the naked truth in the face,* and not despair ?” 

“ Can I, can any one who looks straight forward, 
and strives to see the truth and nothing but the truth ?” 
cried the physician. “We both of us know that things 
only are, to us, such as they picture themselves in the 
prepared mirror of our souls. I see grey, grey, and 
white, white, and have accustomed myself in my yearn- 
ing after knowledge, not to attribute the smallest part 
to my own idiosyncrasy, if such indeed there be existing 
in my empty breast. You look straight onwards as I 
do, but in you each idea is transfigured, for in your soul 
invisible shaping powers are at work, which set the 
crooked straight, clothe the commonplace with charm, 
the repulsive with beauty. You are a poet, an artist; I 
only seek for truth.” 

“ Only ?” said Pentaur, “it is just on account of that 
effort that I esteem you so highly, and, as you already 
know, I also desire nothing but the truth.” 

“I know, I know,” said the physician nodding, “but 
our ways run side by side without ever touching, and 
our final goal is the reading of a riddle, of which 


* In Sais the statue of Athene (Neith) has the following inscription : ‘‘lam 
the All, the Past, the Present, and the Future, my veil has no mortal yet lifted.” 
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 9, a similar quotfition by Proclus, in Plato’s Timaeus. 


240 


UARDA. 


there are many solutions. You believe yourself to have 
found the right one, and perhaps none exists.” 

Then let us content ourselves with the nearest and 
the most beautiful,” said Pentaur. 

“The most beautiful ?” cried Nebsecht indignantly. 
“Is that monster, whom you call God, beautiful — the giant 
who for ever regenerates himself that he may devour 
himself again ? God is the All, you say, who suffices 
to himself. Eternal he is and shall be, because all that 
goes forth from him is absorbed by him again, and 
the great niggard bestows no grain of sand, no ray of 
light, no breath of wind, without reclaiming it for his 
household, which is ruled by no design, no reason, no 
goodness, but by a tyrannical necessity, whose slave he 
himself is. The coward hides behind the cloud of 
incomprehensibility, and can be revealed only by him- 
self — I would I could strip him of the veil ! Thus I 
see the thing that you call God !” 

“A ghastly picture,” said Pentaur, “because you 
forget that we recognize reason to be the essence 
of the All, the penetrating and moving power of the 
universe which is manifested in the harmonious work- 
ing together of its parts, and in ourselves also, since 
we are formed out of its substance, and inspired with 
its soul.” 

“ Is the warfare of life in any way reasonable ?” 
asked Nebsecht. “ Is this eternal destruction in order to 
build up again especially well-designed and wise ? And 
with this introduction of reason into the All, you pro- 
vide yourself with a self-devised ruler, who terribly re- 
sembles the gracious masters and mistresses that you 
exhibit to the people.” 


UARDA. 


241 


“ Only apparently,” answered Pentaur, “ only because 
that which transcends sense is communicable through 
the medium of the senses alone. When God manifests 
himself as the wisdom of the world, we call him ‘ the 
Word,’ ‘ He, who covers his limbs with names,’* as the 
sacred Text expresses itself, is the power which gives 
to things their distinctive forms ; the scarabaeus, ‘ which 
enters life as its own son’** reminds us of the ever self- 
renewing creative power which causes you to call our 
merciful and benevolent God a monster, but which you 
can deny as little as you can the happy choice of tlie 
type; for, as you know, there are only male scarabei, 
and this animal reproduces itself.” *** 

Nebsecht smiled. “ If all the doctrines of the mys- 
teries,” he said, “ have no more truth than this happily 
chosen image, they are in a bad way. These beetles have 
for years been my friends and companions. I know their 
family life, and I can assure you that there are males 
and females amongst them as amongst cats, apes, and 
human beings. Your ‘good God’ I do not know, and 
what I least comprehend in thinking it over quietly is 
the circumstance that you distinguish a good and evil 
principle in the world. If the All is indeed God, if God 
as the scriptures teach, is goodness, and if besides him is 
nothing at all, where is a place to be found for evil ?” 

“You talk like a school-boy,” said Pentaur indig- 
nantly. “ All that is, is good and reasonable in itself, 
but the infinite One, who prescribes his own laws and 
his own paths, grants to the finite its continuance 
through continual renewal, and in the changing forms 

* From inscriptions at Abydos, and the Praises of Ra at Biban el Muluk. 

** From the same Texts. 

*** According to Horapollon, where it is stated: «k hovov jrarobs tjjw 
ytyeiiy e\ei 6 KaySaoos 


UARDA. 


^42 

of the finite progresses for evermore. What we call 
evil, darkness, wickedness, is in itself divine, good, 
reasonable, and clear; but it appears in another light 
to our clouded minds, because we perceive the way 
only and not the goal, the details only, and not the 
whole. Even so, superficial listeners blame the music, 
in which a discord is heard, which the harper has only 
evoked from the strings that his hearers may more 
deeply feel the purity of the succeeding harmony; even 
so, a fool blames the painter who has colored his 
board with black, and does not wait for the completion 
of the picture which shall be thrown into clearer relief 
by the dark background; even so, a child chides the 
noble tree, whose fruit rots, that a new life may spring 
up from its kernel. Apparent evil is but an antechamber 
to higher bliss, as every sunset is but veiled by night, 
and will soon show itself again as the red dawn of a 
new day.” 

“ How convincing all that sounds!” answered the 
physician, “all, even the terrible, wins charm from your 
lips; but I could invert your proposition, and declare 
that it is evil that rules the world, and sometimes gives 
us one drop of sweet content, in order that we may 
more keenly feel the bitterness of life. You see har- 
mony and goodness in everything. I have observed 
that passion awakens life, that all existence is a conflict, 
that one being devours another.” 

“ And do you not feel the beauty of visible creation, 
and does not the immutable law in everything fill you 
with admiration and humility ? ” 

“For beauty,” replied Nebsecht, “I have never 
sought; the organ is somehow wanting in me to under- 
stand it of myself, though I willingly allow you to 


UARDA. 


243 


mediate between us. But of law in nature I fully ap- 
preciate the worth, for that is the veritable soul of the 
universe. You call the One ‘Temt,’ that is to say the 
total — the unity which is reached by the addition of 
many units; and that pleases me, for the elements of 
the universe and the powers which prescribe the paths 
of life are strictly defined by measure and number — 
but irrespective of beauty or benevolence.’* 

“Such views,” cried Pentaur troubled, “are the re- 
sult of your strange studies. You kill and destroy, in 
order, as you yourself say, to come upon the track of 
the secrets of life. Look out upon nature, develop 
the faculty which you declare to be wanting in you, 
and the beauty of creation will teach you without my 
assistance that you are praying to a false god.’* 

“I do not pray,” said Nebsecht, “for the law which 
moves the world is as little affected by prayers as the 
current of the sands in your hour-glass. Who tells you 
that I do not seek to come upon the track of the first 
beginning of things? I proved to you just now that I 
know mxore about the origin of Scarabei than you do. 
I have killed many an animal, not only to study its 
organism, but also to investigate how it has built up 
its form. But precisely in this work my organ for 
beauty has become blunt rather than keen. I tell you 
that the beginning of things is not more attractive to 
contemplate than their death and decomposition.” 

Pentaur looked at the physician enquiringly. 

“I also for once,” continued Nebsecht, “will speak 
in figures. Look at this wine, how pure it is, how 
fragrant; and yet it was trodden from the grape by 
the brawny feet of the vintagers. And those full ears 


244 


UARDA. 


of corn! They gleam golden yellow, and will yield us 
snow-white meal when they are ground, and yet they 
grew from a rotting seed. Lately you were praising 
to me the beauty of the great Hall of Columns nearly 
completed in the Temple of Amon over yonder in 
Thebes.* How posterity will admire it! I saw that 
Hall arise. There lay masses of freestone in wild con- 
fusion, dust in heaps that took away my breath, and 
three months since I Avas sent over there, because 
above a hundred workmen engaged in stone-polishing 
under the burning sun had been beaten to death. 
Were I a poet like you, I would show you a hundred 
similar pictures, in which you would not find much 
beauty. In the meantime, we have enough to do in 
observing the existing order of things, and investigating 
the laws by which it is governed.” 

“I have never clearly understood your efforts, and 
have difficulty in comprehending why you did not turn 
to the science of the haruspices,” said Pentaur. “Do 
you then believe that the changing, and — owing to the 
conditions by which they are surrounded — the depen- 
dent life of plants and animals is governed by law, 
rule, and numbers like the movement of the stars?” 

“What a question! Is the strong and mighty hand, 
which compels yonder heavenly bodies to roll onward 
in their carefully-appointed orbits, not delicate enough 
to prescribe the conditions of the flight of the bird, 
and the beating of the human heart?” 

“There we are again with the heart,” said the poet 
smiling, “are you any nearer your aim?” 

* Begun by Rameses I. continued by Setl I., completed by Rameses IT. 
The remains of this immense hall, with its 134 columns, have not their equal in 
the world. 


UARDA. 


245 


The physician became very grave. “ Perhaps to- 
morrow even,” he said, “ I may have what I need. You 
have your palette there with red and black color, 
and a writing reed. May I use this sheet of papyrus?” 

“ Of course ; but first tell me . . . .” 

“ Do not ask ; you would not approve of my scheme, 
and there would only be a fresh dispute.” 

“ I think,” said the poet, laying his hand on his 
friend’s shoulder, “ that we have no reason to fear dis- 
putes. So far they have been the cement, the refresh- 
ing dew of our friendship.” 

“ So long as they treated of ideas only, and not of 
deeds.” 

“You intend to get possession of a human heart!” 
cried the poet. “ Think of what you are doing I The 
heart is the vessel of that effluence of the universal 
soul, which lives in us.” 

“ Are you so sure of that ?” cried the physician with 
some irritation, “ then give me the proof. Have you 
ever examined a heart, has any one member of my 
profession done so ? The hearts of criminals and 
prisoners of war even are declared sacred from touch, 
and when we stand helpless by a patient, and see our 
medicines work harm as often as good, why is it? 
Only because we physicians are expected to work as 
blindly as an astronomer, if he were required to 
look at the stars through a board. At Heliopolis I 
entreated the great Urma* Rahotep, the truly, learned 
chief of our craft, and who held me in esteem, to allow 
me to examine the heart of a dead Amu ; but he re- 
fused me, because the great Sechet** leads virtuous 


* High-pricst of Heliopolis. 


The lion-hcaded godde*s. 


246 


UARDA. 


Semites also into the fields of the blessed.* And then 
followed all the old scruples : that to cut up the heart 
of a beast even is sinful, because it also is the 
vehicle of a soul, perhaps a condemned and miserable 
human soul, which before it can return to the One, 
must undergo purification by passing through the bodies 
of animals. I was not satisfied, and declared to him 
that my great-grandfather Nebsecht, before he wrote his 
treatise on the heart,** must certainly have examined 
such an organ. Then he answered me that the divinity 
had revealed to him what he had written, and therefore 
his work had been accepted amongst the sacred writings 
of Toth,*** which stood fast and unassailable as the 
laws of the world ; he wished to give me peace for quiet 
work, and I also, he said, might be a chosen spirit, the 
divinity might perhaps vouchsafe revelations to me too. 
I was young at that time, and spent my nights in prayer, 
but I only wasted away, and my spirit grew darker in- 
stead of clearer. Then I killed in secret — first a fowl, 
then rats, then a rabbit, and cut up their hearts, and fol- 
lowed the vessels that lead out of them, and know little 
more now than I did at first ; but I must get to the bot- 
tom of the truth, and I must have a human heart.” 

“ What will that do for you ?” asked Pentaur ; “ you 
cannot hope to perceive the invisible and the infinite 
with your human eyes ?” 

“ Do you know my great-grandfather’s treatise ?” 

“ A little,” answered the poet ; “ he said that wher- 
ever he laid his finger, whether on the head, the hands, 

* According to the inscription accompanying the famous representations 
of the four nations (Egyptians, Semites, Libyans, and Ethiopians) in the tomb of 
Seti I. 

This treatise forms the most interesting section of the papyrus Ebers. 
Puolished by W. Engelmann, Leipzig. 

*** Called by the Greeks “ Hermetic Books.” 'I'he Pap>Tus Ebers is the 
work called by Clemens of Alexandria “ the Book of Remedies.” 


UARDA. 


-47 


or the stomach, he everywhere met with the heart, 
because its vessels go into all the members, and the 
heart is the meeting point of all these vessels. Then 
Nebsecht proceeds to state how these are distributed 
in the different members, and shows — is it not so ? — 
that the various mental states, such as anger, grief, 
aversion, and also the ordinary use of the word heart, 
declare entirely for his view.” 

“ That is it. We have already discussed it, and 
I believe that he is right, so far as the blood is con- 
cerned, and the animal sensations. But the pure and 
luminous intelligence in us — that has another seat,” 
and the physician struck his broad but low forehead 
with his hand. “ I have observed heads by the hundred 
down at the place of execution, and I have also re- 
moved the top of the skulls of living animals. But 
now let me write, before we are disturbed.”* 

The physician took the reed, moistened it with 
black color prepared from burnt papyrus, and in 
elegant hieratic characters** wrote the paper for the 
paraschites, in which he confessed to having impelled 
him to the theft of a heart, and in the most binding 

* Human brains are prescribed for a malady of the eyes in the Ebers papy- 
rus. Herophilus, one of the first scholars of the Alexandrine Museum, studied 
not only the bodies of executed criminals, but made his experiments also on living 
malefactors. He maintained that the four cavities of the human brain are the 
seat of the soul. 

** At the time of our narrative the Egyptians had two kinds of writing — the 
hieroglyphic, which was generally used for monumental inscriptions, and in 
which the letters consisted of conventional representations of various objects, 
mathematical and arbitrary symbols, and the hieratic, used for writing on papy- 
rus, and in which, with the view of saving time, the written pictures underwent 
so many alterations and abbreviations that the originals could hardly be recog- 
nized. In the 8th century there was a further abridgment of the hieratic writing, 
which was called the demotic, or people’s writing, and was used in commerce. 
Whilst the hieroglyphic and hieratic writings laid the foundations of the old sa- 
cred dialect, the demotic letters were only used to write the spoken language of 
the people. E. de Rouge’s Chrestomathie ftgyptienne. H. Brugsch’s Hiero- 
glyphische Grammatik. Le Page Rcnouf ’s shorter hieroglyphical grammar. 
Ebers’ Ueber das Hieroglyphische Schriftsystem, 2 nd edition, 1875, in the leg- 
turcs of Virchow Holuendorff. 


248 


UARDA. 


manner declared himself willing to take the old man’s 
guilt upon himself before Osiris and the judges of 
the dead. 

When he had finished, Pentaur held out his hand 
for the paper, but Nebsecht folded it together, placed 
it in a little bag in which lay an amulet that his dying 
mother had hung round his neck, and said, breathing 
deeply : 

“That is done. Farewell, Pentaur.” 

But the poet held the physician back ; he spoke to 
him with the warmest words, and conjured him to 
abandon his enterprise. His prayers, however, had no 
power to touch Nebsecht, who only strove forcibly to 
disengage his finger from Pentaur’s strong hand, which 
held him as in a clasp of iron. The excited poet did 
not remark that he was hurting his friend, until after 
a new and vain attempt at freeing himself, Nebsecht 
cried out in pain, “You are crushing my finger!” 

A smile passed over the poet’s face, he loosened 
his hold on the physician, and stroked the reddened 
hand like a mother who strives to divert her child 
from pain. 

“ Don’t be angry with me, Nebsecht,” he said, “you 
know my unlucky fists, and to-day they really ought 
to hold you fast, for you have too mad a purpose on 
hand.” 

“ Mad ?” said the physician, whilst he smiled in his 
turn. “ It may be so ; but do you not know that we 
Egyptians all have a peculiar tenderness for our follies, 
and are ready to sacrifice house and land to them ?” 

“Our own house and our own land,” cried the 
poet ; and then added seriously, “ but not the existence, 
not the happiness of another.” 


UARDA. 


249 


“ Have I not told you that I do not look upon the 
heart as the seat of our intelligence ? So far as I am 
concerned, I would as soon be buried with a ram’s 
heart as with my own.” 

“ I do not speak of the plundered dead, but of the 
living,” said the poet. “ If the deed of the paraschites 
is discovered, he is undone, and you would only have 
saved that sweet child in the hut behind there, to 
fling her into deeper misery.” 

Nebsecht looked at the other with as much astonish- 
ment and dismay, as if he had been awakened from 
sleep by bad tidings. Then he cried : “ All that I have, 
I would share with the old man and Uarda.” 

“ And who would protect her ?” 

“ Her father.” 

“ That rough drunkard who to-morrow or the day 
after may be sent no one knows where.” 

“ He is a good fellow,” said the physician inter- 
rupting his friend, and stammering violently. “ But 
who would do anything to the child ? She is so — 
so ... . She is so charming, so perfectly sweet and 
lovely.” 

With these last words he cast down his eyes and 
reddened like a girl. 

“ You understand that,” he said, ‘‘better than I do; 
yes, and you also think her beautiful ! Strange ! you 
must not laugh if I confess — I am but a man like 
every one else — when I confess, that I believe I have 
at length discovered in myself the missing organ for 
beauty of form — ^not believe merely, but truly have dis- 
covered it, for it has not only spoken, but cried, raged, 
till I felt a rushing in my ears, and for the first time 
was attracted more by the sufferer than by suffering. 


250 


UARDA. 


I have sat in the hut as though spell-bound, and 
gazed at her hair, at her eyes, at how she breathed. 
They must long since have missed me at the House of 
Seti, perhaps discovered all my preparations, when 
seeking me in my room ! For two days and nights I 
have allowed myself to be drawn away from my work, 
for the sake of this child. Were I one of the laity, 
whom you would approach, I should say that demons 
had bewitched me. But it is not that,” — and with 
these words the physician’s eyes flamed up — “ it is not 
that ! The animal in me, the low instincts of which the 
heart is the organ, and which swelled my breast at her 
bedside, they have mastered the pure and fine emotions 
here — ^here in this brain ; and in the very moment when 
I hoped to know as the God knows whom you call the 
Prince of knowledge, in that moment I must learn that 
the animal in me is stronger than that which I call 
my God.” 

The physician, agitated and excited, had fixed 
his eyes on the ground during these last words, and 
hardly noticed the poet, who listened to him wonder- 
ing and full of sympathy. For a time both were silent; 
then Pentaur laid his hand on his friend’s hand, and 
said cordially : 

“ My soul is no stranger to what you feel, and 
heart and head, if I may use your own words, have 
known a like emotion. But I know that what we feel, 
although it may be foreign to our usual sensations, is 
loftier and more precious than these, not lower. Not 
the animal, Nebsecht, is it that you feel in yourself, but 
God. Goodness is the most beautiful attribute of the 
divine, and you have always been well-disposed towards 
great and small ; but I ask you, have you ever before 


UARDA. 


251 


felt so irresistibly ' impelled to pour out an ocean of 
goodness on another being, whether for Uarda you 
would not more joyfully and more self-forgetfully sacri- 
fice all that you have, and all that you are, than to 
father and mother and your oldest friend ?” 

Nebsecht nodded assentingly. 

“Well then,” cried Pentaur, “follow your new and 
godlike emotion, be good to Uarda and do not sacrifice 
her to your vain wishes. My poor friend ! With your 
enquiries into the secrets of life, you have never looked 
round upon itself, which spreads open and inviting 
before our eyes. Do you imagine that the maiden 
who can thus inflame the calmest thinker in Thebes, 
will not be coveted by a hundred of the common herd 
when her protector fails her? Need I tell you that 
amongst the dancers in the foreign quarter nine out 
of ten are the daughters of outlawed parents ? Can 
you endure the thought that by your hand innocence 
may be consigned to vice, the rose trodden under foot 
in the mud ? Is the human heart that you desire, 
worth an Uarda ? Now go, and to-morrow come again 
to me your friend who understands how to sympathize 
with all you feel, and to whom you have approached 
so much the nearer to-day that you have learned to 
share his purest happiness.” 

Pentaur held out his hand to the physician, who 
held it some time, then went thoughtfully and lingering- 
ly, unmindful of the burning glow of the mid-day sun, 
over the mountain into the valley of the king’s graves 
towards the hut of the paraschites. 

Here he found the soldier with his daughter. 
“ Wh.ere is the old man ?” he asked anxiously. 

“ He has gone to his work in the house of the em- 


UARDA. 


252 

balmer,” was the answer. ‘‘If anything should happen 
to him he bade me tell you not to forget the writing 
and the book. He was as though out of his mind 
when he left us, and put the ram’s heart in his bag and 
took it with him. Do you remain with the little one ; 
my mother is at work, and I must go with the prisoners 
of war to Harmontis.”* 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

While the two friends from the House of Seti were 
engaged in conversation, Katuti restlessly paced the 
large open. hall of her son-in-law’s house, in which we 
have already seen her. A snow-white cat followed her 
steps, now playing with the hem of her long plain dress, 
and now turning to a large stand on which the dwarf 
Nemu sat in a heap ; where formerly a silver statue had 
stood, which a few months previously had been sold. 

He liked this place, for it put him in a position to look 
into the eyes of his mistress and other full-grown people. 

“ If you have betrayed me ! If you have deceived 
me !” said Katuti with a threatening gesture as she 
passed his perch. 

“ Put me on a hook to angle for a crocodile if I 
have. But I am curious to know how he will offer you 
the money.” 

“ You swore to me,” interrupted his mistress with 
feverish agitation, “ that you had not used my name in 
asking Paaker to save us ?” 

“ A thousand times I swear it,” said the little man. 

* The Erment of to-day, the nearest town to the south of Thebes, at a day’s 
journey from that city. 


UARDA. 


253 


“ Shall I repeat all our conversation ? I tell thee he 
will sacrifice his land, and his house — great gate and 
all, for one friendly glance from Nefert’s eyes.” 

“ If only Mena loved her as he does !” sighed the 
widow, and then again she walked up and down the 
hall iu silence, while the dwarf looked out at the garden 
entrance. Suddenly she paused in front of Neinu, and 
said so hoarsely that Nemu shuddered : 

I wish .she were a widow.” 

The little man made a gesture as if to protect him- 
self from the evil eye, but at the same instant he slipped 
down from his pedestal, and exclaimed : 

“ There is a chariot, and I hear his big dog barking. 
It is he. Shall I call Nefert ?” 

“ No !” said Katuti in a low voice, and she clutched 
at the back of a chair as if for support. 

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders, and slunk behind 
a clump of ornamental plants, and a few minutes later 
Paaker stood in the presence of Katuti, who greeted him 
with quiet dignity and self-possession. 

Not a feature of her finely-cut face betrayed her in- 
ward agitation, and after the Mohar had greeted her she 
said with rather patronizing friendliness : 

“ I thought that you would come. Take a seat. 
Your heart is like your father’s ; now that you are friends 
with us again it is not by halves.” 

Paaker had come to offer his aunt the sum which 
was necessary for the redemption of her husband’s 
mummy. He had doubted for a long time whether he 
should not leave this to his mother, but reserve partly 
and partly vanity had kept him from doing so. He 
liked to display his wealth, and Katuti should learn 
what he could do, what a son-in-law she had rejected. 


254 


UARDA. 


He would have preferred to send the gold, which 
he had resolved to give away, by the hand of one of 
his slaves, like a tributary prince. But that could not 
be done; so he put on his finger a ring set with a 
valuable stone, which king Seti had given to his 
father, and added various clasps and bracelets to his 
dress. 

When, before leaving the house, he looked at him- 
self in a mirror, he said to himself with some satisfac- 
tion, that he, as he stood, was worth as much as the 
whole of Mena’s estates. 

Since his conversation with Nemu, and the dwarf’s 
interpretation of his dream, the path which he must 
tread to reach his aim had been plain before him. 
Nefert’s mother must be won with the gold which 
would save her from -disgrace, and Mena must be sent 
to the other world. He relied chiefly on his own reck- 
less obstinacy — which he liked to call firm determina- 
tion — Nemu’s cunning, and the love-philter. 

He now approached Katuti with the certainty of 
success, like a merchant who means to acquire some 
costly object, and feels that he is rich enough to pay 
for it. But his aunt’s proud and dignified manner 
confounded him. * 

He had pictured her quite otherwise, spirit-broken, 
and suppliant; and he had expected, and hoped to 
earn, Nefert’s thanks as well as her mother’s by his 
generosity. Mena’s pretty wife was however absent, 
and Katuti did not send for her even after he had en- 
quired after her health. 

The widow made no advances, and some time 
passed in indifferent conversation, till Paaker abruptly 
informed her that he had heard of her son’s reckless 


UARDA. 


255 


conduct, and had decided, as being his; mother’s 
nearest relation, to preserve her from the degradation 
that threatened her. For the sake of his bluntness, 
which she took for honesty, Katuti forgave the magni- 
ficence of his dress, which under the circumstances 
certainly seemed ill-chosen; she thanked him with 
dignity, but warmly, more for the sake of her children 
than for her own ; for life she said was opening before 
them, while for her it was drawing to its close. 

“ You are still at a good time of life,” said Paaker. 

“ Perhaps at the best,” replied the widow, “ at any 
rate from my point of view ; regarding life as I do as 
a charge, a heavy responsibility.” 

“The administration of this involved estate must 
give you many anxious hours — that I understand.” 

Katuti nodded, and then said sadly : 

“ I could -bear it all, if I were not condemned to 
see my poor child bfeing brought to misery without 
being able to help her or advise her. You once would 
willingly have married her, and I ask you, was there 
a maiden in Thebes — nay in all Egypt— to compare 
with her for beauty? Was she not worthy to be 
loved, and is she not so still ? Does she deserve 
that her husband should leave her to starve, neglect 
her, and take a strange woman into his tent as if he 
had repudiated her ? I see what you feel about it ! 
You throw all the blame on me. Your heart says : 
‘ Why did she break off our betrothal,’ and your right 
feeling tells you that you would have given her a 
happier lot.” 

With these words Katuti took her nephew’s hand, 
and went on with increasing warmth. 

“ We know you to-day for the most magnanimous 


256 


UARDA. 


man in Thebes, for you have requited injustice with 
an immense benefaction ; but even as a boy you were 
kind and noble. Your father’s wish has alway been 
dear and sacred to me, for during his lifetime he al- 
ways behaved to us as an affectionate brother, and I 
would sooner have sown the seeds of sorrow for my- 
self than for your mother, my beloved sister. I brought 
up my child — I guarded her jealously — for the young 
hero who was absent, proving his valor in Syria — for 
you and for you only. Then your father died, my sole 
stay and protector.” 

“ I know it all !” interrupted Paaker looking gloom- 
ily at the floor. 

“ Who should have told you ?” said the widow. 
“ For your mother, when that had happened which 
seemed incredible, forbid us her house, and shut her 
ears. The king himself urged Mena’s suit, for he loves 
him as his own son, and when I represented your 
prior claim he commanded ; — and who may resist the 
commands of the sovereign of two worlds, the Son of 
Ra ? Kings have short memories ; how often did your 
father hazard his life for him, how many wounds had 
he received in his service. For your father’s sake he 
might have spared you such an affront, and such 
pain.” 

“And have I myself served him, or not?” asked 
the pioneer flushing darkly. 

“ He knows you less,” returned Katuti apologeti- 
cally. Then she changed her tone to one of sympathy, 
and went on : 

“ How was it that you, young as you were, aroused 
his dissatisfaction, his dislike, nay his — ” 


UARDA. 


257 


** His what ?” asked the pioneer, trembling with ex- 
citement. 

“ Let that pass !” said the widow soothingly. “ The 
favor and disfavor of kings are as those of the Gods. 
Men rejoice in the one or bow to the other.” 

“ What feeling have I aroused in Rameses besides 
dissatisfaction, and dislike ? I insist on knowing !” said 
Paaker with increasing vehemence. 

“You alarm me,” the widow declared. “And in 
speaking ill of you, his only motive was to raise his 
favorite in Nefert’s estimation.” 

“Tell me what he said!” cried the pioneer; cold 
drops stood on his brown forehead, and his glaring 
eyes showed the white eye-balls. 

Katuti quailed before him, and drew back, but he 
followed her, seized her arm, and said huskily : 

“ What did he say ?” 

“ Paaker 1” cried the widow in pain and indigna- 
tion. “ Let me go. It is better for you that I should 
not repeat the words with which Rameses sought to 
turn Nefert’s heart from you. Let me go, and re- 
member to whom you are speaking.” 

But Paaker gripped her elbow the tighter, and ur- 
gently repeated his question. 

“ Shame upon you !” cried Katuti, “ you are hurting 
me; let me go! You will not till you have heard 
what he said ? Have your own way then, but the 
words are forced from me! He said that if he did 
not know your mothei* Setchem for an honest woman, 
he never would have believed you were your father’s 
son — for you were no more like him than an owl to an 
eagle.” 


b*ARDA. 


258 


Paaker took his hand fr6m Katuti’s arm. “ And so 
— ^and so — ” he muttered with pale lips. ' 

Nefert took your part, and I too, but in vain. 
Do not take the words too hardly. Your father was a 
man without an equal, and Rameses cannot forget that 
we are related to the old royal house. His grand- 
father, his father, and himself are usurpers, and there 
is one now living who has a better right to the throne 
than he has.” 

“ The Regent Ani !” exclaimed Paaker decisively. 

Katuti nodded, she went up to the pioneer and 
said in a whisper: 

“ I put myself in your hands, though I know they 
may be raised against me. But you are my natural 
ally, for that same act of Rameses that disgraced and 
injured you, made me a partner in the designs of Ani. 
The king robbed you of your bride, me of my daugh- 
ter. He filled your soul with hatred for your arrogant 
rival, and mine with passionate regret for the lost hap- 
piness of my child. I feel the blood of Hatasu in my 
veins, and my spirit is high enough to govern men. 
It was I who roused the sleeping ambition of the 
Regent — I who directed his gaze to the throne to 
which he was destined by the Gods. The ministers 
of the Gods, the priests, are favorably disposed to us ; 
we have — ” 

At this moment there was a commotion in the gar- 
den, and a breathless slave rushed in exclaiming : 

“ The Regent is at the gate !” 

Paaker stood in stupid perplexity, but he collected 
himself with an effort and would have gone, but Katuti 
detained him. 

“ I will go forward to meet Ani,” she said. “ He 


UARDA. 259 

will be rejoiced to see you, for he esteems you highly 
and was a friend of your father’s.” 

As soon as Katuti had left the hall, the dwarf 
Nemu crept out of his hiding-place, placed himself in 
front of Paaker, and asked boldly : 

“Well? Did I give thee good advice yesterday, 
or no ?” 

But Paaker did not answer him, he pushed him 
aside with his foot, and walked up and down in deep 
thought. 

Katuti met the Regent half way down the garden. 
He held a manuscript roll in his hand, and greeted 
her from afar with a friendly wave of his hand. 

The widow looked at him with astonishment. 

It seemed to her that he had grown taller and 
younger since the last time she had seen him. 

“ Hail to your highness !” she cried, half in joke 
half reverently, and she raised her hands in supplica- 
tion, as if he already wore the double crown of Upper 
and Lower Egypt. “ Have the nine* Gods met you ? 
have the Hathors kissed you in your slumbers ? This 
is a white day — a lucky day — I read it in your face !” 

“ That is reading a cipher !” said Ani gaily, but with 
^dignity. “ Read this despatch.” 

Katuti took the roll from his hand, read it through, 
and then returned it. 

“The troops you equipped have conquered the 
allied armies of the Ethiopians,” she said gravely. 


* The Egyptians commonly classed their Gods in Triads, and 3x3=9, 
but also sometimes in groups of 8, 13 and 13. Tn the tale of “ The Two Brothers ” 
the Holy Nine meet Batau, and make a wife for him. 


260 


UARDA. 


“and are bringing their prince in fetters to Thebes, 
with endless treasure, and ten thousand prisoners! The 
Gods be praised !” 

“ And above all things I thank the Gods that my 
general Scheschenk — my foster-brother and friend — is 
returning well and unwounded from the war. I think, 
Katuti, that the figures in our dreams are this day tak- 
ing forms of flesh and blood I” 

“ They are growing to the stature of heroes!” cried 
the widow. “And you yourself, my lord, have been 
stirred by the breath of the Divinity. You walk like 
the worthy son of Ra, the courage of Menth beams in 
your eyes, and you smile like the victorious Horus.” 

“ Patience, patience my friend,” said Ani, moder- 
ating the eagerness of the widow ; “ now, more than 
ever, we must cling to my. principle of over-estimating 
the strength of our opponents, and underrating our 
own. Nothing has succeeded on which I had counted, 
and on the contrary many things have justified my 
fears that they would fail. The beginning of the end 
is hardly dawning on us.” 

“ But successes, like misfortunes, never come singly,” 
replied Katuti. 

“ I agree with you,” said Ani. “ The events of life 
seem to me to fall in groups. Every misfortune brings 
its fellow with it — ^like every piece of luck. Can you 
tell me of a second success ?” 

“Women win no battles,” said the widow smiling. 
“ But they win allies, and I have gained a powerful 
one.” 

“ A God or an army ?” asked Ani. 

“ Something between the two,” she replied. “ Paaker, 
the king’s chief pioneer, has joined us;” and she, briefly 


UARDA. 


26r 


related to Ani the history of her nephew’s love and 
hatred. 

Ani listened in silence; then he said with an ex- 
pression of much disquiet and anxiety : 

“This man is a follower of Raineses, and must 
shortly return to him. Many may guess at our projects, 
but every additional person who knows them may be- 
come a traitor. You are urging me, forcing me, for- 
ward too soon. A thousand well-prepared enemies 
are less dangerous than one untrustworthy ally — ” 

“ Paaker is secured to us,” replied Katuti positively. 

“ Who will answer for him ?” asked Ani. 

“ His life shall be in your hand,” replied Katuti 
gravely. “ My shrewd little dwarf Nemu knows that 
he has committed some secret crime, which the law 
punishes by death.” 

The Regent’s countenance cleared. 

“ That alters the matter,” he said with satisfaction. 

“ Has he committed a murder ?” 

“ No,” said Katuti, “but Nemu has sworn to reveal 
to you alone all that he knows* Hejs wholly devoted 
to us.” 

“Well and good,” said Ani thoughtfully, “but he 
too is imprudent — mucli too imprudent. You are like 
a rider, who to win a wager urges his horse to leap 
over spears. If he falls on the points, it is he that 
suffers ; you let him lie there, and go on your way.” 

“ Or are impaled at the same time as the noble 
horse,” said Katuti gravely. “ You have more to win, 
and at the same time more to lose than we ; but the 
meanest clings to life; and I must tell you, Ani, that I 
work for you, not to win any thing through your suc- 
cess, but because you are as dear to me as a brother, 


262 


UARDA. 


and because I see in you the embodiment of my 
father’s claims which have been trampled on.” 

Ani gave her his hand and asked : 

“ Did you also as my friend speak to Bent-Anat ? — 
Do I interpret your silence rightly ?” 

Katuti sadly shook her head ; but Ani went on : 
“ Yesterday that would have decided me to give her 
up; but to-day my courage has risen, and if the 
Hathors be my friends I may yet win her.” 

With these words he went in advance of the widow 
into the hall, where Paaker was still walking uneasily 
up and down. 

The pioneer bowed low before the Regent, who 
returned the greeting with a half-haughty, half-familiar 
wave of the hand, and when he had seated himself in 
an arm-chair politely addressed Paaker as the son of a 
friend, and a relation of his family. 

“All the world,” he said, “speaks of your reckless 
courage. Men like you are rare ; I have none such 
attached to me. I wish you stood nearer to me ; but 
Rameses will not part with you, although — although — 
In point of fact your office has two aspects ; it requires 
the daring of a soldier, and the dexterity of a scribe. 
No one denies that you have the first, but the second 
- — the sword and the reed-pen are very different 
weapons, one requires supple fingers, the other a sturdy 
fist. The king used to complain of your reports — is he 
better satisfied with them now ?” 

“ I hope so,” replied the Mohar ; “ my brother Horus 
is a practised writer, and accompanies me in my 
journeys.” 

“ That is well,” said Ani. “ If I had the manage- 
ment of affairs I should treble your staff, and give you 


IjArdA. 


2^3 


four — five — six scribes under you, who should be en- 
tirely at your command, and to whom you could give 
the materials for the reports to be sent out. Your 
office demands that you should be both brave and cir- 
cumspect ; these characteristics are rarely united ; but 
there are scriveners by hundreds in the temples.” 

“ So it seems to me,” said Paaker. 

Ani looked down meditatively, and continued — 
“ Rameses is fond of comparing you with your father. 
That is unfair, for he — who is now with the justified — 
was without an equal ; at once the bravest of heroes 
and the most skilful of scribes. You are judged un- 
justly ; and it grieves me all the more that you belong, 
through your mother, to my poor but royal house. We 
will see whether I cannot succeed in putting you in the 
right place. For the present you are required in Syria 
almost as soon as you have got horne. You have shown 
that you are a man who does not fear death, and 
who can render good service, and you might now enjoy 
your wealth in peace with your wife.” 

“ I am alone,” said Paaker. 

“Then, if you come home again, let Katuti seek 
you out the prettiest wife in Egypt,” said the Regent 
smiling. “ She sees herself every day in her mirror, and 
must be a connoisseur in the charms of women.” 

Ani rose with these words, bowed to Paaker with 
studied friendliness, gave his hand to Katuti, and said 
as he left the hall : 

“ Send me to-day the — the handkerchief — ^by the 
dwarf Nemu.” 

When he was already in the garden, he turned 
once more and said to Paaker : 


tARDA. 


^64 


“Some friends are supping with me to-day; pray 
let me see you too.” 

The pioneer bowled; he dimly perceived that he 
was entangled in invisible toils. Up to the present 
moment he had been proud of his devotion to his 
calling, of his duties as Mohar; and now he had dis- 
covered that the king, whose chain of honor hung 
round his neck, undervalued him, and perhaps only 
suffered him to fill his arduous and dangerous post 
for the sake of his father, while he, notwithstanding 
the temptations offered him in Thebes by his wealth, 
had accepted it willingly and disinterestedly. He knew 
that his skill with the pen was small, but that was no 
reason why he should be despised ; often had he wished 
that he could reconstitute his office exactly as Ani had 
suggested, but his petition to be allowed a secretary 
had been rejected by Rameses. What he spied out, 
he was told was to be kept secret, and no one could 
be responsible for the secrecy of another. 

As his brother Horus grew up, he had followed him 
as his obedient assistant, even after he had married a 
wife, who, with her child, remained in Thebes under 
the care of Setchem. 

He w^as now filling Paaker’s place in Syria during 
his absence; badly enough, as the pioneer thought, and 
yet not without credit ; for the fellow knew how to 
write smooth words with a graceful pen. 

Paaker, accustomed to solitude, became absorbed 
in thought, forgetting everything that surrounded him ; 
even the widow herself, who had sunk on to a couch, 
and was observing him in silence. 

He gazed into vacancy, while a crowd of sensations 
rushed confusedly through his brain. He thought him- 


UARDA. 


265 


self cruelly ill-used, and he felt too that it was in- 
cumbent on him to become the instrument of a ter- 
rible fate to some other person. All was dim and 
chaotic in his mind, his love merged in his hatred; 
only one thing was clear and unclouded by doubt, 
and that was his strong conviction that Nefert would 
be his. 

The Gods indeed were in deep disgrace with him. 
How much he had expended upon them — and with 
what a grudging hand they had rewarded him; he 
knew of but one indemnification for his wasted life, 
and in that he believed so firmly that he counted on 
it as if it were capital which he had invested in sound 
securities. But at this moment his resentful feelings 
embittered the sweet dream of hope, and he strove in 
vain for calmness and clear-sightedness; when such 
cross-roads as these met, no amulet, no divining rod 
could guide him ; here he must think for himself, and 
beat his own road before he could walk in it ; and yet 
he could think out no plan, and arrive at no decision. 

He grasped his burning forehead in his hands, and 
started from his brooding reverie, to remember where 
he was, to recall his conversation with the mother of 
the woman he loved, and her saying that she was 
capable of guiding men. 

“She perhaps may be able to think for me,” he 
muttered to himself. “Action suits me better.” 

He slowly went up to her and said : 

“So it is settled then — we are confederates.” 

“Against Rameses, and for Ani,” she replied, giving 
him her slender hand. 

“ In a few days I start for Syria, meanwhile you 
can make up your mind what commissions you have 
IS 


266 


UArdA. 


to give me. The money for your son shall be con- 
veyed to you to-day before sunset. May I not pay 
my respects to Nefert?” 

“ Not now, she is praying in the temple.” 

“ But to-morrow ? ” 

“ Willingly, my dear friend. She will be delighted 
to see you, and to thank you.” 

“ Farewell, Katuti.” 

“ Call me mother,” said the widow, and she waved 
her veil to him as a last farewell. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

As soon as Paaker had disappeared behind the 
shrubs, Katuti struck a little sheet of metal, a slave 
appeared, and Katuti asked her whether Nefert had 
returned from the temple. 

“ Her litter is just now at the side gate,” was the 
answer. 

“ I await her here,” said the widow. The slave 
went away, and a few minutes later Nefert entered 
the hall. 

“You want me?” she said; and after kissing her 
mother she sank upon her couch. “ I am tired,” she 
exclaimed, “ Nemu, take a fan and keep the flies 
off me.” 

The dwarf sat down on a cushion by her couch, 
and began to wave the semi-circular fan of ostrich- 
feathers; but Katuti put him aside and said: 

“You can leave us for the present; we want to 
speak to each other in private.” 

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and got up, but 


UArda. 267 

Nefert looked at her mother with an irresistible ap- 
peal. 

“ Let him stay,” she said, as pathetically as if her 
whole happiness depended upon it. “The flies torment 
me so, and Nemu always holds his tongue.” 

She patted the dwarf’s big head as if he were a 
lap-dog, and called the white cat, which with a grace- 
ful leap sprang on to her shoulder and stood there 
with its back arched, to be stroked by her slender 
fingers. 

Nemu looked enquiringly at his mistress, but Ka- 
tuti turned to her daughter, and said in a warning 
voice : / 

“ I have very serious things to discuss with you.” 

“Indeed?” said her daughter, “but I cannot be 
stung by the flies all the same. Of course, if you 
w'ish it — ” 

“ Nemu may stay then,” said Katuti, and her voice 
had the tone of that of a nurse who gives way to 
a naughty child. “ Besides, he knows what I have to 
talk about.” 

“There now!” said Nefert, kissing the head of the 
white cat, and she gave the fan back to the dwarf. 

The widow looked at her daughter with sincere 
compassion^ she went up to her and looked for the 
thousandth time in admiration at her pretty face. 

“ Poor child,” she sighed, “ how willingly I would 
spare you the frightful news which sooner or later you 
must hear — must bear. Leave off your foolish play 
with the cat, I have things of the most hideous gravity 
to tell you.” 

“ Speak on,” replied Nefert. “ To-day I cannot fear 
the worst. Mena’s star, the haruspex told me, stands 


268 


UARDA. 


under the sign of happiness, and I enquired of the 
oracle in the temple of Besa, and heard that my hus- 
band is prospering. I have prayed in the temple till 
I am quite content. Only speak ! — I know my brother’s 
letter from the camp had no good news in it; the 
evening before last I saw you had been crying, and 
yesterday you did not look well ; even the pome- 
granate flowers in your hair did not suit you.” 

“ Your brother,” sighed Katuti, “ has occasioned me 
great trouble, and we might through him have suffered 
deep dishonor — ” 

<‘We — dishonor?” exclaimed Nefert, and she 
nervously clutched at the cat. 

“Your brother lost enormous sums at play; to 
recover them he pledged the mummy of your father — ” 

“Horrible!” cried Nefert. “We must appeal at 
once to the king ; — I will write to him myself ; for Mena’s 
sake he will hear me. Raineses is great and noble, 
and will not let a house that is faithfully devoted to 
him fall into disgrace through the reckless folly of a 
boy. Certainly I will write to him.” 

She said this in a voice of most childlike con- 
fidence, and desired Nemu to wave the fan more 
gently, as if this concern were settled. 

In Katuti’s heart surprise and indignation at the 
unnatural indifference of her daughter were struggling 
together; but she withheld all blame, and said care- 
lessly : 

“We are already released, for my nephew Paaker, 
as soon as he heard what threatened us, offered me 
his help; freely and unprompted, from pure goodness 
of heart and attachment.” 

‘ How good of Paaker!” cried Nefert. ‘ He was so 


UARDA. 


269 


fond of me, and you know, mother, I always stood up 
for him. No doubt it was for my sake that he be- 
haved so generously !” 

The young wife laughed, and pulling the cat’s face 
close to her own, held her nose to its cool little nose, 
stared into its green eyes, and said, imitating childish 
talk : 

“ There now, pussy — ^how kind people are to your 
little mistress.” 

Katuti was vexed at this fresh outburst of her 
daughter’s childish impulses. 

“ It seems to me,” she said, “ that you might leave 
off playing and trifling when. I am talking of such 
serious matters. I have long since observed that the 
fate of the house to which your father and mother be- 
long is a matter of perfect indifference to you ; and yet 
you would have to seek shelter and protection under 
its roof if your husband — ” 

“Well, mother?” asked Nefert raising herself, and 
breathing more quickly. 

As soon as Katuti perceived her daughter’s agitation 
she regretted that she had not more gently led up to 
the news she had to break to her ; for she loved her 
daughter, and knew that it would give her keen pain. 

So she went on more sympathetically — 

“You boasted in joke that people are good to 
you, and it is true ; you win hearts by your mere being 
. -by only being what you are. And Mena too loved 
you tenderly ; but ‘ absence,’ says the proverb, ‘ is the 
one real enemy,’ and Mena — ” 

“ What has Mena done ?” Once more Nefert inter- 
rupted her mother, and her nostrils quivered. 

“ Mena,” said Katuti, decidedly, “ has violated the 


270 


UARDA, 


truth and esteem which he owes you — he has trodden 
them under foot, and — ” 

“ Mena ?” exclaimed the young wife with flashing 
eyes ; she flung the cat on the floor, and sprang from 
her couch. 

“Yes — Mena,” said Katuti firmly. “Your brother 
writes that he would have neither silver nor gold for 
his spoil, but took the fair daughter of the prince of 
the Danaids into his tent. The ignoble wretch !” 

“Ignoble wretch!” cried Nefert, and two or three 
times she repeated her mother’s last words. Katuti 
drew back in horror, for her gentle, docile, childlike 
daughter stood before her absolutely transfigured beyond 
all recognition. 

She looked like a beautiful demon of revenge ; her 
eyes sparkled, her breath came quickly, her limbs 
quivered, and with extraordinary strength and rapidity 
she seized the dwarf by the hand, led him to the door 
of one of the rooms which opened out of the hall, threw 
it open, pushed the little man over the threshold, and 
closed it sharply upon him ; then with white lips she 
came up to her mother. 

“An ignoble wretch did you call him?” she cried 
out with a hoarse husky voice, “ an ignoble wretch ! 
Take back your words, mother, take back your words, 
or — ” 

Katuti turned paler and paler, and said sooth- 
ingly : 

“ The words may sound hard, but he has broken 
faith with you, and openly dishonored you.” 

“And shall I believe it ?” said Nefert with a scorn- 
ful laugh. “ Shall I believe it, because a scoundrel has 
written it, who has pawned his father’s body and the 


UARDA. 


271 


honor of his family; because it is told you by that 
noble and brave gentleman ! why a box on the ears 
from Mena would be the death of him. Look at me, 
mother, here are my eyes, and if that table there were 
Mena’s tent, and you were Mena, and you took the 
fairest woman living by the hand and led her into it, 
and these eyes saw it — aye, over and over again — I 
would laugh at it — as I laugh at it now; and I should 
say, ‘ Who knows what he may have to give her, or to 
say to her,’ and not for one instant would I doubt his 
truth ; for your son is false and Mena is true. Osiris 
broke faith with Isis* — ^but Mena may be favored 
by a hundred women — he will take none to his tent 
but me !” 

“ Keep your belief,” said Katuti bitterly, “ but leave 
me mine.” 

“ Yours ?” said Nefert, and her flushed cheeks turned 
pale again. “ What do you believe ? You listen to the 
worst and basest things that can be said of a man who 
has overloaded you with benefits ! A wretch, bah ! an 
ignoble wretch ? Is that what you call a man who lets 
you dispose of his estate as you please !” 

“ Nefert,” cried Katuti angrily, “ I will — ” 

“ Do what you will,” interrupted her indignant 
daughter, “but do not vilify the generous man who 
has never hindered you from throwing away his property 
on your son’s debts and your own ambition. Since the 
day before yesterday I have learned that we are not 
rich; and I have reflected, and I have asked myself 
what has become of our corn and our cattle, of our 
sheep and the rents from the farmers. The wretch’s 
estate was not so contemptible ; but I tell you plainly I 

* Sec Plutarch, Isis and Osiris. 


272 


UARDA. 


should be unworthy to be the wife of the noble Mena 
if I allowed any one to vilify his name under his own 
roof. Hold to your belief, by all means, but one of us 
must quit this house — you or I.” 

At these words Nefert broke into passionate sobs, 
threw herself on her knees by her couch, hid her face 
in the cushions, and wept convulsively and without in- 
termission. 

Katuti stood behind her, startled, trembling, and 
not knowing what to say. Was this her gentle, dreamy 
daughter ? Had ever a daughter dared to speak thus 
to her mother ? But was she right or was Nefert ? This 
question was the pressing one ; she knelt down by the 
side of the young wife, put her arm round her, drew 
her head against her bosom, and whispered pitifully : 

“ You cruel, hard-hearted child; forgive your poor, 
miserable mother, and do not make the measure of her 
wretchedness overflow.” 

Then Nefert rose, kissed her mother’s hand, and 
went silently into her own room. 

Katuti remained alone ; she felt as if a dead hand 
held her heart in its icy grasp, and she muttered to 
herself — 

“ Ani is right — nothing turns to good excepting that 
from which we expect the worst.” 

She held her hand to her head, as if she had heard 
something too strange to be believed. Her heart went 
after her daughter, but instead of sympathizing with her 
she collected all her courage, and deliberately recalled 
all the reproaches that Nefert had heaped upon her. 
She did not spare herself a single word, and finally she 
murmured to herself : “ Slie can spoil every thing. For 
Mena’s sake she will sacrifice me and the whole world; 


UARDA. 


273 


Mena and Raineses are one, and if she discovers what 
we are plotting she will betray us without a moment’s 
hesitation. Hitherto all has gone on without her see- 
ing it, but to-day something has been unsealed in her 
• — an eye, a tongue, an ear, which have hitherto been 
closed. She is like a deaf and dumb person, who by 
a sudden fright is restored to speech and hearing. My 
favorite child will become the spy of my actions, and 
my judge.” 

She gave no utterance to the last words, but she 
seemed to hear them with her inmost ear; the voice 
that could speak to her thus, startled and frightened 
her, and solitude was in itself a torture; she called the 
dwarf, and desired him to have her litter prepared, as 
she intended going to the temple, and visiting’ the 
wounded who had been sent home from Syria. 

‘‘And the handkerchief for the Regent?” asked the 
little man. 

“It was a pretext,” said Katuti. “He wishes to 
speak to you about the matter which you know of with 
regard to Paaker. What is it?” 

“Do not ask,” replied Nemu, “ I ought not to betray 
it. By Besa, who protects us dwarfs,* it is better that 
thou shouldst never know it.” 

“For to-day I have learned enough that is new to 
me,” retorted Katutk “Now go to Ani, and if you are 
able to throw Paaker entirely into his power — good — I 
will give — but what have I to give away? I will be 
grateful to you; and when we have gained our end I 
will set you free and make you rich.” 

Nemu kissed her robe, and said in a low voice: 
“ What is the end ?” 

• Perhaps on accc’.int of his dwarfish figure. 


274 


tJARDA. 


“You know what Ani is striving for,*' answered the 
widow. “And I have but one wish!” 

“And that is?” 

“To see Paaker in Mena’s place.” 

“Then our wishes are the same,” said the dwarf 
and he left the Hall. 

Katuti looked after him and muttered : 

“It must be so. For if every thing remains as it was 
and Mena comes home and demands a reckoning — it 
is not to be thought of ! It must not be! ” 


CHAPTER XX. 

As Nemu, on his way back from his visit to Ani, 
approached his mistress’s house, he was detained by a 
boy, who desired him to follow him to the stranger’s 
quarter. Seeing him hesitate, the messenger showed 
him the ring of his mother Hekt, who had come into 
the town on business, and wanted to speak with him. 

Nemu was tired, for he was not accustomed to walk- 
ing; his ass was dead, and Katuti could not afford to 
give him another. Half of Mena’s beasts had been 
sold, and the remainder barely sufficed for the field- 
labor. 

At the corners of the busiest, streets, and on the 
market-places, stood boys with asses which they hired 
out for a small sum;* but Nemu had parted with his 
last money for a garment and a new wig, so that he 

* In the streets of modern Egyptian towns asses stand saddled for hire. 
On the monuments only foreigners are represented as riding on asses, but 
these beasts are mentioned in almost every list of the possessions of the nobles, 
even in very early times, and the number is often considerable. There is a 
picture extant of a rich old man who rides on a seat supported on the backs of 
two donkeys. • Lepsius, Denkmaler, part ii. 126. 


I 


UARDA. 


^75 


might appear worthily attired before the Regent. In 
former times his pocket had never been empty, for 
Mena had thrown him many a ring of silver, or even of 
gold, but his restless and ambitious spirit wasted no 
regrets on lost luxuries. He remembered those years 
of superfluity with contempt, and as he puffed and 
panted on his way through the dust, he felt himself 
swell with satisfaction. 

The Regent had admitted him to a private inter- 
view, and the little man had soon succeeded in rivet- 
ing his attention ; Ani had laughed till the tears rolled 
down his cheeks at Nemu’s description of Paaker’s wild 
passion, and he had proved himself in earnest over the 
dwarfs further communications, and had met his de- 
mands half-way. Nemu felt like a duck hatched on 
dry land, and put for the first time into w^ater; like a 
bird hatched in a cage, and that for the first time is 
allowed to spread its wings and fly. He would have 
swum or have flown willingly to death if circumstances 
had not set a limit to his zeal and energy. 

Bathed in sweat and coated with dust, he at last 
reached the gay tent in the stranger’s quarter,* where 
the sorceress Hekt was accustomed to alight when she 
came over to Thebes. 

He was considering far-reaching projects, dreaming 
of possibilities, devising subtle plans — rejecting them 
as too subtle, and supplying their place with others 
more feasible and less dangerous; altogether the little 
diplomatist had no mind for the motley tribes which 
here surrounded him. He had passed the temple in 

* Herodotus mentions the Tyrian quarter of Memphis, which lay south- 
wards from the temple of Ptah, and in which ^eivrf Acp^odivify i. e. the 
foreign Aphrodite, was worshipped. Brugsch has identified it with the quarter 
of the city called the “ world of life.” 

/ 


276 


UARDA. 


which the people of Kaft adored their goddess Astarte,* 
and the sanctuary of Seth, where they sacrificed to 
Baal,** without letting himself be disturbed by the 
dancing devotees or the noise of cymbals and music 
which issued from their enclosures. The tents and 
slightly-built wooden houses of the dancing girls did 
not tempt him. Besides their inhabitants, who in 
the evening tricked themselves out in tinsel finery to 
lure the youth of Thebes into extravagance and folly, 
and spent their days in sleeping till sun-down, only the 
gambling booths drove a brisk business; and the guard 
of police had much trouble to restrain the soldier, who 
had staked and lost all his prize money, or the sailor, 
who thought himself cheated, from such outbreaks of 
rage and despair as must end in bloodshed. Drunken 
men lay in front of the taverns, and others were ooing 
their utmost, by repeatedly draining their beake>,6, to 
follow their example. 

Nothing was yet to be seen of the various musicians, 
jugglers, fire-eaters, serpent-charmers, and conjurers, 
who in the evening displayed their skill in this part of 
the town, which at all times had the aspect of a never- 


* Astarte, the great goddess of the Phoenicians, frequently appears on the 
monuments as Sechet. At Edfu she is represented with the lioness-head, and 
drives a chariot drawn by horses. Her name frequently occurs in papyri of 
the time of our story with that of Rameses II., as well as of a favonte horse 
and dog of the king's. 

** According to the papyrus Sajlier I., the Hyksos-king Apepi-Apophis 
“chose Seth for his lord, and worshipped no other god in Egypt.” In later 
times the Semitic god Baal was called Seth by the Egyptians thenr.selves, as 
we learn from the treaty of peace of Rameses II. with the Cheta, found at 
Kamak, in which on one side the Seth of the Cheta (a different god), and 
Astarte are invoked, and on the other the Egyptian gods. The form “ Sutech” 
occurs with “ Seth. 

SeA-Typhon is discussed in “ Etudes figyptologiques ” by Diestel, “Voyage 
d’un Egyptien” by Chabas, “jEgyp'en und die Biicher Moses” by Ebers, and 
lately by E. Meyer, in his “Dissertation iiber Seth,” The Phoenician religion 
is exhaustively treated by Movers. 


UARDA. 


277 


ceasing fair. But these delights, which Nemu had passed 
a thousand times, had never had any temptation for 
him. Women and gambling were not to his taste; that 
which could be had simply for the taking, without 
trouble or exertion, offered no charms to his fancy; he 
had no fear of the ridicule of the dancing-women, and 
their associates — indeed, he occasionally sought them, 
for he enjoyed a war of words, and he was of opinion 
that no one in Thebes could beat him at having the 
last word. Other people, indeed, shared this opinion, 
and not long before Paaker’s steward had said of 
Nemu : 

“ Our tongues are cudgels, but the little one’s is a 
dagger.” 

The destination of the dwarf was a very large and 
gaudy tent, not in any way distinguished from a dozen 
others in its neighborhood. The opening which led 
into it was wide, but at present closed by a hanging of 
coarse stuff. 

Nemu squeezed himself in between the edge of the 
tent and the yielding door, and found himself in an al- 
most circular tent with many angles, and with its 
cone-shaped roof supported on a pole by way of a 
pillar. 

Pieces of .shabby carpet lay on the dusty soil that 
was the floor of the tent, and on these squatted some 
gaily-clad girls, whom an old woman was busily en- 
gaged in dressing. She painted the finger and toe- 
nails of the fair ones with orange-colored Hennah, 
blackened their brows and eye-lashes with Mestem* to 
give brilliancy to their glance, painted their cheeks witli 
white and red, and anointed their hair with scented oil. 

* Antimony. 


278 


UARDA. 


It was very hot in the tent, and not one of the girls 
spoke a word; they sat perfectly still before the old 
woman, and did not stir a finger, excepting now and 
then to take up one of the porous clay pitchers, which 
stood on the ground, for a draught of water, or to put a 
))ill of Kyphi between their painted lips. 

Various musical instruments leaned against the walls 
of the tent, hand-drums, pipes and lutes and four tam- 
bourines lay on the ground ; on the vellum of one slept 
a cat, whose graceful kittens played with the bells in 
the hoop of another. 

An old negro-woman went in and out of the little 
back-door of the tent, pursued by flies and gnats, 
while she cleared away a variety of earthen dishes with 
the remains of food — pomegranate-peelings, bread- 
crumbs, and garlic -tops — which had been lying on one 
of the carpets for some hours since the girls had finished 
their dinner. 

Old Hekt sat apart from the girls on a painted 
trunk, and she was saying, as she took a parcel from her 
wallet : 

“ Here, take this incense, and burn six seeds of it, 
and the vermin will all disappear — ” she pointed to the 
flies that swarmed round the platter in her hand. “ If 
you like I will drive away the mice too and draw the 
snakes out of their holes better than the priests.”* 

“ Keep your magic to yourself,” said a girl in a husky 
voice. “ Since you muttered your words over me, and 
gave me that drink to make me grow slight and lissom 
again, I have been shaken to pieces with a cough at 
night, and turn faint when I am dancing.” 

* Recipes for exterminating noxious creatures are found in the papyrus 
m my possession. 


UARDA. 


279 


“ But look how slender you have grown,” answered 
Hekt, “ and your cough will soon be well.” 

“ When I am dead,” whispered the girl to the old 
woman. “ I know that — most of us end so.” 

The witch shrugged her shoulders, and perceiving 
the dwarf she rose from her seat. 

The girls too noticed the little man, and set up the 
indescribable cry, something like the cackle of hens, 
which is peculiar to Eastern women when something 
tickles their fancy. Nemu was well known to them, 
for his mother always stayed in their tent whenever 
she came to Thebes, and the gayest of them cried 
out : 

“You are grown, little man, since the last time you 
were here.” 

“ So are you,” said the dwarf sharply ; “ but only as 
far as big words are concerned.” 

“ And you are as wicked as you are small,” retorted 
the girl. 

“ Then my wickedness is small too,” said the dwarf 
laughing, “ for I am little enough ! Good morning, girls 
— may Besa help your beauty. Good day, mother — 
you sent for me ?” 

The old woman nodded ; the dwarf perched himself 
on the chest beside her, and they began to whisper to- 
gether. 

“ How dusty and tired you are,” said Hekt. “ I 
do believe you have come on foot in the burning 
sun.” 

“ My ass is dead,” replied Nemu, “and I have no 
money to hire a steed.” 

“ A foretaste of future splendor,” said the old 


28 o 


UARDA» 


woman with a sneer, “ What have you succeeded in 
doing ?” 

“ Paaker has saved us,” replied Nemu, “ and I have 
just come from a long interview with the Regent.” 

“ Well ?” 

“ He will renew your letter of freedom, if you will 
put Paaker into his power.” 

“ Gt)od — good. I wish he would make up his mind 
to come and seek me — in disguise, of course. I 
would — ” 

“He is very timid, and it would not be wise to 
suggest to him anything so unpracticable.” 

“ Hm — ” said Hekt, “ perhaps you are right, for 
when we have to demand a good deal it is best only 
to ask for what is feasible. One rash request often 
altogether spoils the patron’s inclination for granting 
favors.” 

“ What else has occurred ?” 

“ The Regent’s army has conquered the Ethiopians, 
and is coming home with rich spoils.” 

“ People may be bought with treasure,” muttered 
the old woman, “ good — good !” 

“ Paaker’s sword is sharpened; I would give no 
more for my master’s life, than I have in my pocket — 
and you know why I came on foot through the dust.” 

“ Well, you can ride home again,” replied his mother, 
giving the little man a small silver ring. “Has the 
pioneer seen Nefert again ?” 

“Strange things have happened,” said the dwarf, 
and he told his mother what had taken place between 
Katuti and Nefert. Nemu was a good listener, and 
had not forgotten a word of what he had heard. 


UARDA. 


28 j : 

The old woman listened to his story with the most 
eager attention. 

“Well, well,” she muttered, “here is another extra* 
ordinary thing. What is common to all men is gener- 
ally disgustingly similar in the palace and in the hovel. 
Mothers are everywhere she-apes, who with pleasure 
let themselves be tormented to death by their children, 
who repay them badly enough, and the wives gener- 
ally open their ears wide if any one can tell them 
of some misbehavior of their husbands! But that is not 
the way with your mistress.” 

The old woman looked thoughtful, and then she con- 
tinued: 

“ In point of fact this can be easily explained, and 
is not at all more extraordinary than it is that those 
tired girls should sit yawning. You told me once that 
it was a pretty sight to see the mother and daughter 
side by side in their chariot when they go to a festival 
or the Panegyrai;* Katuti, you said, took care that the 
colors of their dresses and the flowers in their hair 
should harmonize. For which of them is the dress 
first chosen on such occasions?” 

“Always for the lady. Katuti, who never wears any 
but certain colors,” replied Nemu quickly. 

“You see,” said the witch laughing, “indeed it 
must be so. That mother always thinks of herself first, 
and of the objects she wishes to gain; but they hang 
high, and she treads down everything that is in her 
way — even her own child — to reach them. She will 
contrive that Paaker shall be the ruin of Mena, as sure 
as I have ears to hear with, for that woman is capable 
of playing any tricks with her daughter, and would 

* Festal assemblies with fairs. 

IQ 


282 


UARDA. 


marry her to that lame dog yonder if it would advance 
her ambitious schemes.” 

“ But Nefert !” said Nemu. “ You should have seen 
her. The dove became a lioness.” 

“ Because she loves Mena as much as her mother 
loves herself,” answered Hekt. “As the poets say, ‘she 
is full of him.’ It is really true of her, there is no 
room for any thing else. She cares for one only, and 
woe to those who come between him and her !” 

“ I have seen other women in love,” said Nemu, 
“ but — ” ^ 

“ Buti” exclaimed the old witch with such a sharp 
laugh that the girls all looked up, “ they behaved dif- 
ferently to Nefert — I believe you, for there is not one 
in a thousand that loves as she does. It is a sickness that 
gives raging pain — like a poisoned arrow in an open 
wound, and devours all that is near it like a fire-brand, 
and is harder to cure than the disease which is killing 
that coughing wench. To be possessed by that demon 
of anguish is to suffer the torture of the damned — -or 
else,” and her voice sank to softness, “ to be more blest 
than the Gods, happy as they are. I know — I know 
it all ; for I was once one of the possessed, one of a 
thousand, and even now — ” 

“ Well ?” asked the dwarf. 

“Folly!” muttered the witch, stretching herself as 
if awaking from sleep. “ Madness I He — is long since 
dead, and if he were not it would be all the same to 
me. All men are alike, and Mena will be like the 
rest.” 

“ But Paaker surely is governed by the demon you 
describe ?” asked the dwarf. 

“ May be,” replied his mother ; “ but he is self-willed 


UARDA. 


283 

to madness. He would simply give his life for the 
thing because it is denied him. If your mistress Nefert 
were his, perhaps he might be easier ; but what is the 
use of chattering ? I must go over to the gold tent, 
where everyone goes now who has any money in theif 
purse, to speak to the mistress — ” 

“What do you want with her?” interrupted Nemu. 

“Little Uarda over there,” said the old woman, 
“will soon be quite well again. You have seen her 
lately ; is she not grown beautiful, wonderfully beauti- 
ful ? Now I shall see what the good woman will offer 
me if I take Uarda to her? the girl is as light-footed, 
as a gazelle, and with good training would learn to 
dance in a very few weeks.” 

Nemu turned perfectly white. 

“ That you shall not do,” said he positively. 

“ And why not ?” asked the old woman, “ if it pays 
well.” 

“ Because I forbid it,” said the dwarf in a choked 
voice. 

“ Bless me,” laughed the woman ; “ you want to play 
my lady Nefert, and expect me to take the part of 
her mother Katuti. But, seriously, having seen the 
child again, have you any fancy for her ?” 

“ Yes,” replied Nemu. “ If we gain our end, Katuti 
will make me free, and make me rich. Then I will 
buy Pinem’s grandchild, and take her for my wife. I 
will build a house near the hall of justice, and give 
the complainants and defendants private advice, like 
the hunch-back Sent, who now drives through the 
streets in his own chariot.” 

“ Hm — ” said his mother, “ that might have done 
very well, but perhaps it is too late. When the child 


284 


UARDA. 


had fever she talked about the young priest who was 
sent from the House of Seti by Ameni. He is a fine 
tall fellow, and took a great interest in her; he is a 
gardener’s son, named Pentaur.” 

“ Pentaur ?” said the dwarf. “ Pentaur ? He has the 
haughty air and the expression of the old Mohar, and 
would be sure to rise ; but they are going to break his 
proud neck for him.” 

“ So much the better,” said the old woman. “ Uarda 
would be just the wife for you, she is good and steady, 
and no one knows — ” 

“What?” said Nemu. 

“ Who her mother was — for she was not one of us. 
She came here from foreign parts, and when she died 
she left a trinket with strange letters on it. We must 
show it to one of the prisoners of war, after you have 
got her safe ; perhaps they could make out the queer 
inscription. She comes of a good stock, that I am 
certain; for Uarda is the very living image of her 
mother, and as soon as she was born, she looked like 
the child of a great man. You smile, you idiot! Why 
thousands of infants have been in my hands, and if 
one was brought to me wrapped in rags I could tell if 
its parents were noble or base-born. The shape of the 
foot shows it — and other marks. Uarda may stay where 
she is, and I will help you. If anything new occurs let 
me know.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


When Nemu, riding on an ass this time, reached 
home, he found neither his mistress nor Nefert within. 


UARDA. 


285 


The former was gone, first to the temple, and then 
into the town; Nefert, obeying an irresistible impulse, 
had gone to her royal friend Bent-Anat. 

The king’s palace was more like a little town 
than a house.* The wing in which the Regent resided, 
and which we have already visited, lay away from the 
river; while the part of the building which was used 
by the royal family commanded the Nile. 

It offered a splendid, and at the same time a pleasing 
prospect to the ships which sailed by at its foot, for it 
stood, not a huge and solitary mass in the midst of 
the surrounding gardens, but in picturesque groups of 
various outline. On each side of a large structure, 
which contained the state rooms and banqueting hall, 
three rows of pavilions of different sizes extended in 
symmetrical order. They were connected with each 
other by colonnades, or by little bridges, under which 
flowed canals, that watered the gardens and gave the 
palace-grounds the aspect of a town built on islands. 

The principal part of the castle of the Pharaohs 
was constructed of light Nile-mud bricks and elegantly 
carved woodwork, but the extensive walls which sur- 
rounded it were ornamented and fortified with towers, 
in front of which heavily armed soldiers stood on 
guard. 

The walls and pillars, the galleries and colonnades, 
even the roofs, blazed in many colored paints, and 
at every gate stood tall masts, from which red and 


* The view accepted by many writers, that the temples were also the 
king’s palace, is erroneous. In the best-preserved temples, as at Dendera and 
Edfu, we know the purpose of the several rooms, and they were all devoted to 
the service of the gods. We learn from the monuments that the kings in- 
habited extensive buildings surrounded by gardens, and constructed of light 
materials. I'he palaces resembled, in fact, the houses of the nobles, but were 
on a larger scale. . 


286 


UARDA. 


blue flags fluttered when the king was residing there. 
Now they stood up with only their brass spikes, which 
were intended to intercept and conduct the lightning.* 

To the right of the principal building, and entirely 
surrounded with thick plantations of trees, stood the 
houses of the royal ladies, some mirrored in the lake 
which they surrounded at a greater or less distance. In 
this part of the grounds were the king’s storehouses in 
endless rows, while behind the centre building, in which 
the Pharaoh resided, stood the barracks for his body^ 
guard and the treasuries. The left wing was occupied 
by the officers of the household, the innumerable ser- 
vants and the horses and chariots of the sovereign. 

In spite of the absence of the king himself, brisk 
activity reigned in the palace of Rameses, for a hundred 
gardeners watered the turf, the flower-borders, the shrubs 
and trees; companies of guards passed hither and thither; 
horses were being trained and broken ; and the princess’s 
wing was as full as a beehive of servants and maids, 
officers and priests. 

Nefert was wll known in this part of the palace. 
The gate-keepers let her litter pass unchallenged, with 
low bows; once in the garden, a lord in waiting received 
her, and conducted her to the chamberlain, who, after a 
short delay, introduced her into the sitting-room of the 
king’s favorite daughter. 

Bent-Anat’s apartment was on the first floor of the 
pavilion, next to the king’s residence. Her dead mother 
had inhabited these pleasant rooms, and when the prin- 
cess was grown up it made the king happy to feel that 
she was near him; so the beautiful house of the wife 
who had too early departed, was given up to her, and 

* According to an inscription first interpreted by Diimichen. 


UARDA. 


287 


at the same time, as she was his eldest daughter, many 
privileges were conceded to her, which hitherto none 
but queens had enjoyed. 

The large room, in which Nefert found the princess, 
commanded the river. A doorway, closed with light 
curtains, opened on to a long balcony with a finely- 
worked balustrade of copper-gilt, to which clung a 
climbing rose with pink flowers. 

When Nefert entered the room, Bent-Anat was just 
having the rustling curtain drawn aside by her waiting- 
women; for the sun was setting, and at that hour she 
loved to sit on the balcony, as it grew cooler, and watch 
with devout meditation the departure of Ra, who, as the 
grey-haired Turn,* vanished behind the western horizon 
of the*Necropolis in the evening to bestow the blessing 
of light on the under-world. 

Nefert’s apartment was far more elegantly appointed 
than the princess’s; her mother and Mena had sur- 
rounded her with a thousand pretty trifles. Her carpets 
were made of sky-blue and silver brocade from Damas- 
cus, the seats and couches were covered with stuff em- 
broidered in feathers by the Ethiopian women, which 
looked like the breasts of birds. The images of the 
Goddess Hathor, which stood on the house-altar, were 
of an imitation of emerald, which was called Mafkat, 
and the other little figures, which were placed near their 
patroness, were of lapis-lazuli, malachite, agate and 
bronze, overlaid with gold. On her toilet-table stood a 
collection of salve-boxes, and cups of ebony and ivory 
finely carved, and everything was arranged with the 
utmost taste, and exactly suited Nefert herself. 

Bent-Anat’s room also suited the owner. 


* See note page 9. 


288 


UARDA. 


It was high and airy, and its furniture consisted in 
costly but simple necessaries; the lower part of the wall 
was lined with cool tiles of white and violet earthen- 
ware, on each of which was pictured a star, and which, 
all together, formed a tasteful pattern. Above these the 
walls were covered with a beautiful dark green material 
brought from Sais, and the same stuff was used to cover 
the long divans by the wall. Chairs and stools, made 
of cane, stood round a very large table in the middle of 
this room, out of which several others opened; all 
handsome, comfortable, and harmonious in aspect, but 
all betraying that their mistress took small pleasure in 
trifling decorations. But her chief delight was in finely- 
grown plants, of which rare and magnificent specimens, 
artistically arranged on stands, stood in the comers of 
many of the rooms. In others there were tall obelisks 
of ebony, which bore saucers for incense, which all the 
Egyptians loved, and which was prescribed by their 
physicians to purify and perfume their dwellings. Her 
simple bedroom would have suited a prince who loved 
floriculture, quite as well as a princess. 

Before all things Bent-Anat loved air and light. 
The curtains of her windows and doors were only 
closed when the position of the sun absolutely required 
it; while in Nefert’s rooms, from morning till evening, 
a dim twilight was maintained. 

The princess went affectionately towards the chari- 
oteer’s wife, who bowed low before her at the threshold ; 
she took her chin with her right hand, kissed her deli- 
cate narrow forehead, and said : 

“ Sweet creature ! At last you have come uninvited 
to see lonely me! It is the first time since our men 
went away to the war. If Rameses’ daughter com- 


UARDA. 289 

mands there is no escape, and you come; but of your 
own free will — ” 

Nefert raised her large eyes, moist with tears, with 
an imploring look, and her glance was so pathetic 
that Bent-Anat interrupted herself, and taking both her 
hands, exclaimed: 

“Do you know who must have eyes exactly like 
yours? I mean the Goddess from whose tears, when 
they fall on the earth, flowers spring.” 

Nefert’s eyes fell and she blushed deeply. 

“I wish,” she murmured, “that my eyes might close 
for ever, for I am very unhappy.” And two large tears 
rolled down her cheeks. 

“What has happened to you, my darling?” asked 
the princess sympathetically, and she drew her towards 
her, putting her arm round her like a sick child. 

Nefert glanced anxiously at the chamberlain, and 
the ladies in waiting who had entered the room with 
her, and Bent-Anat understood the look; she requested 
her attendants to withdraw, and when she was alone 
with her sad little friend — “Speak now,” she said. 
“ What saddens your heart ? how comes this melancholy 
expression ■ on your dear baby face? Tell me, and I 
will comfort you, and you shall be my bright thought- 
less plaything once more.” 

“Thy plaything!” answered Nefert, and a flash of 
displeasure sparkled in her eyes. “Thou art right to 
call me so, for I deserve no better name. I have sub- 
mitted all my life to be nothing but the plaything of 
others.” 

“But, Nefert, I do not know you again,” cried Bent- 
Anat. “Is this my gentle amiable dreamer?” 

“That is the word I wanted,” said Nefert in a low 


2go 


UARDA. 


tone. “I slept, and dreamed, and dreamed on — till 
Mena awoke me; and when he left me I went to sleep 
again, and for two whole years I have lain dreaming; but 
to-day I have been torn from my dreams so suddenly 
and roughly, that I shall never find any rest again.” 

While she spoke, heavy tears fell slowly one after 
another over her cheeks. 

Bent-Anat felt what she saw and heard as deeply 
as if Nefert were her own suffering child. She lovingly 
drew the young wife down by her side on the divan, 
and insisted on Nefert’s letting her know all that 
troubled her spirit. 

Katuti’s daughter had in the last few hours felt like 
one born blind, and who suddenly receives his sight. 
He looks at the brightness of the sun, and the mani- 
fold forms of the creation around him, but the beams 
of the day-star blind his eyes, and the new forms, 
which he has sought to guess at in his mind, and which 
throng round him in their rude reality, shock him and 
pain him. To-day, for the first time, she had asked 
herself wherefore her mother, and not she herself, was 
called upon to control the house of which she neverthe- 
less was called the mistress,* and the answer had rung 
in her ears: “Because Mena thinks you incapable of 
thought and action.” He had often called her his 
little rose, and she felt now that she was neither more nor 
less than a flower that blossoms and fades, and only 
charms the eye by its color and beauty. 

“My mother,” she said to Bent-Anat, “no doubt 
loves me, but she has managed badly for Mena, very 
badly; and I, miserable idiot, slept and dreamed of 
Mena, and saw and heard nothing of what was happen- 

* Mistress of the House is the usual title of the wives of aristocratic Egyptians. 


UARDA. 


2gi 


ing to his — to our — inheritance. Now my mother is 
afraid of my husband, and those whom we fear, says 
my uncle, we cannot love, and we are always ready to 
believe evil of those we do not love. So she lends an 
ear to those people who blame Mena, and say of him 
that he has driven me out of his heart, and has taken 
a strange woman to his tent. But it is false and a lie; 
and I cannot and will not countenance my own mother 
even, if she embitters and mars what is left to me — 
what supports me — the breath and blood of my life — 
my love, my fervent love for my husband.” 

Bent-Anat had listened to her without interrupting 
her; she sat by her for a time in silence. Then she 
said: 

* “Come out into the gallery; then I will tell you what 
I think, and perhaps Toth may pour some helpful counsel 
into my mind. I love you, and I know you well, and 
though I am not wise, I have my eyes open and a strong 
hand. Take it, come with me on to the balcony.” 

A refreshing breeze met the two women as they 
stepped out into the air. It was evening, and a reviv- 
ing coolness had succeeded the heat of the day. The 
buildings and houses already cast long shadows, and 
numberless boats, with the visitors returning from the 
Necropolis, crowded the stream that rolled its swollen 
flood majestically northwards. 

Close below lay the verdant garden, which sent 
odors from the rose-beds up to the princess’s balcony. 
A famous artist had laid it out in the time of Hatasu, 
and the picture which he had in his mind, when he 
sowed the seeds and planted the young shoots, was now 
realized, many decades after his death. He had thought 
of planning a carpet, on which the palace should seem 


292 


UARDA. 


to Stand. Tiny streams, in bends and curves, formed 
the outline of the design, and the shapes they enclosed 
were filled with plants of every size, form, and color; 
beautiful plats of fresh green turf everywhere represented 
the groundwork of the pattern, and flower-beds and 
clumps of shrubs stood out from them in harmonious 
mixtures of colors, while the tall and rare trees, of which 
Hatasu’s ships* had brought several from Arabia, gave 
dignity and impressiveness to the whole. 

Clear drops sparkled on leaf and flower and blade, 
for, only a short time befofe, the garden by Bent-Anat’s 
house had been freshly watered. The Nile beyond 
surrounded an island, where flourished the well-kept 
sacred grove of Amon. 

The Necropolis on the farther side of the river was 
also well seen from Bent-Anat’s balcony. There stood 
in long perspective the rows of sphinxes, which led from 
the landing-place of the festal barges to the gigantic 
buildings of Amenophis III. with its colossi — the hugest 
in Thebes — to the House of Seti, and to the temple of 
Hatasu. There lay the long workshops of the em- 
balmers and closely-packed homes of the inhabitants of 
the City of the Dead. In the farthest west rose the 
Libyan mountains with their innumerable graves, and 
the valley of the kings’ tombs took a wide curve behind, 
concealed by a spur of the hills. 

The two women looked in silence towards the west. 
The sun was near the horizon — now it touched it, now 
it sank behind the hills; and as the heavens flushed 
with hues like living gold, blazing rubies, and liquid 
garnet and amethyst, the evening chant rang out from 

* Neha trees brought to Egypt in large tubs are represented iji Hatasu’$ 
(emple at Der el Bahri. 


uarda. 


^93 


all the temples, and the friends sank on their knees, 
hid their faces in the bower-rose garlands that clung 
to the trellis, and prayed with full hearts. 

When they rose night was spreading over the land- 
scape, for the twilight is short in Thebes. Here and 
there a rosy cloud fluttered across the darkening sky, 
and faded gradually as the evening star appeared. 

“ I am content,” said Bent-Anat. “ And you ? have 
you recovered your peace of mind ?” 

Nefert shook her head. The princess drew her on to 
a seat, and sank down beside her. Then she began again : 

“ Your heart is sore, poor child ; they have spoilt the 
past for you, and you dread the future. Let me be 
frank with you, even if it gives you pain. You are sick, 
and I must cure you. Will you listen to me ?” 

“Speak on,” said Nefert. 

“ Speech does not suit me so well as action,” re- 
plied the princess ; “ but I believe I know what you 
need, and can help you. You love your husband; duty 
calls him from you, and you feel lonely and neglected ; 
that is quite natural. But those whom I love, my 
father and my brothers, are also gone to the war ; my 
mother is long since dead ; the noble woman, whom the 
king left to be my companion, was laid low a few 
weeks since by sickness. Look what a half-abandoned 
spot my house is ! Which is the lonelier do you think, 
you or I ?” 

“ I,” said Nefert. “ For no one is so lonely as a 
v/ife parted from the husband her heart longs after.” 

“ But you trust Mena’s love for you ?” asked Bent- 
Anat. 

Nefert pressed her hand to her heart and nodded 
assent ; 


^94 


UARDA. 


“ And he will return, and with him your happiness.” 

I hope so,” said Nefert softly. 

“ And he who hopes,” said Bent-Anat, “ possesses 
already the joys of the future. Tell me, would you 
have changed places with the Gods so long as Mena 
was with you? No! Then you are most fortunate, 
for blissful memories — the joys of the past — are yours 
at any rate. What is the present ? I speak of it, and 
it is no more. Now, I ask you, what joys can I look 
forward to, and what certain happiness am I justified 
in hoping for ? 

“ Thou dost not love any one,” replied Nefert. 
“Thou dost follow thy own course, calm and un- 
deviating as the moon above us. The highest joys are 
unknown to thee, but for the same reason thou dost 
not know the bitterest pain.” 

“ What pain ?” asked the princess. 

“ The torment of a heart consumed by the fires of 
Sechet,” replied Nefert. 

The princess looked thoughtfully at the ground, 
then she turned her eyes eagerly on her friend. 

“You are mistaken,” she said; “ I know what love 
and longing are. But you need only wait till a feast- 
day to wear the jewel that is your own, while my 
treasure is no more mine than a pearl that I see 
gleaming at the bottom of the sea-.” 

“Thou canst love!” exclaimed Nefert with joyful 
excitement. “ Oh ! I thank Hathorthat at last she has 
touched thy heart. The daughter of Rameses need 
not even send for the diver to fetch the jewel out of 
the sea ; at a sign from her the pearl will rise of itself, 
and lie on the sand at her slender feet.” 

Bent-Anat smiled and kissed Nefert’s brow. 


trARbX. 


^95 

How it excites you,” she said, “ and stirs your 
heart and tongue ! If two strings are tuned in har- 
mony, and one is struck, the other sounds, my music- 
master tells me. I believe you would listen to me till 
morning if I only talked to you about my love. But 
it was not for that that we came out on the balcony. 
Now listen ! I am as lonely as you, I love less happily 
than you, the House of Seti threatens me with evil 
times — and yet I can preserve my full confidence in 
life and my joy in existence. How can you explain 
this ?” 

“We are so very different,” said Nefert. 

“ True,” replied Bent-Anat, “ but we are both young, 
both women, and both wish to do right. My mother 
died, and I have had no one to guide me, for I who 
for the most part need some one to lead me can al- 
ready command, and be obeyed. You had a mother 
to bring you up, who, when you were still a child, was 
proud of her pretty little daughter, and let her — as it 
became her so well — dream and play, without warning 
her against the dangerous propensity. Then Mena 
courted you. You love him truly, and in four long 
years he has been with you but a month or two ; your 
mother remained with you, and you hardly observed 
that she was managing your own house for you, and 
took all the trouble of the household. You had a 
great pastime of your own — your thoughts of Mena, 
and scope for a thousand dreams in your distant 
love. I know it, Nefert; all that you have seen and 
heard and felt in these twenty months has centred in 
him and him alone. Nor is it wrong in itself. The 
rose tree here, which clings to my balcony, delights us 
both ; but if the gardener did not frequently prune it 


2g6 UARDA. 

and tie it with palm-bast, in this soil, which forces 
everything to rapid growth, it would soon shoot up so 
high that it would cover door and window, and I 
should sit in darkness. Throw this handkerchief over 
your . shoulders, for the dew falls as it grows cooler, 
and listen to me a little longer ! — The beautiful 
passion of love and fidelity has grown unchecked in 
your dreamy nature to such a height, that it darkens 
your spirit and your judgment. Love, a true love, it 
seems to me, should be a noble fruit-tree, and not a 
rank weed. I do not blame you, for she who should 
have been the gardener did not heed — and would not 
heed — what was happening. Look, Nefert, so long as 
I wore the lock of youth, I too did what I fancied. 
I never found any pleasure in dreaming, but in wild 
games with my brothers, in. horses and in falconry 
they often said I had the spirit of a boy, and indeed 
I would willingly have been a boy.” 

“Not I — never!” said Nefert. 

“ You are just a rose — my dearest,” said Bent-Anat. 
“ Well 1 when I was -fifteen I was so discontented, so 
insubordinate and full of all sorts of wild behavior, so 
dissatisfied in spite of all the kindness and love that 
surrounded me — but I will tell you what happened. 
It is four years ago, shortly before your wedding with 
Mena; my father called me to play draughts.** You 
know how certainly he could beat the most skilful 
antagonist ; but that day his thoughts were wandering, 
and I won the game twice following. Full of insolent 
delight, I jumped up and kissed his great handsome 

* In many papyri of the period of this narrative the training of falcons is 
mentioned. 

** At Medinet Habu a picture represents Rameses the Third, not Rameses 
the Second, playing at draughts with his daughter. 


UARDA. 


297 


forehead, and cried ‘ d’he sublime God, the hero, under 
whose feet the strange nations writhe,* to whom the 
priests and the people pray — is beaten by a girl!’ 
He smiled gently, and answered ‘d'he Lords of Heaven 
are often outdone by the Ladies, and Necheb,** the 
lady of victory, is a woman.’ Then he grew graver, 
and said: ‘ You call me a God, my child, but in this 
only do I feel truly godlike, that at every moment 
1 strive to the utmost to prove myself useful by my 
labors; here restraining, there promoting, as is need- 
ful.*** Godlike I can never be but by doing or 
producing something great!’ * These words, Nefert, fell 
like seeds in my soul. At last I knew what it was 
that was wanting to me ; and when, a few weeks later, 
my father and your husband took the field with a 
hundred thousand fighting men, I resolved to be 
worthy of my godlike father, and in my little circle 
to be of use too! You do not know all that is done 
in the houses behind there, under my direction. Three 
hundred girls spin pure flax, and weave it into bands 
of linen for the wounds of the soldiers; numbers of 
children, and old women, gather plants on the moun- 
tains, and others sort them according to the instruc- 
tions of a physician ; in the kitchens no banquets are 
prepared, but fruits are preserved in sugar for the 
loved ones, and the sick in the camp. Joints of meat 
are salted, dried, and smoked for the army on its 

* A formula often recurring in the reports of victories. 

** The Eileithyia of the Greeks. The Goddess of the South, in contradis- 
tinction to Buto, the Goddess of the North. She often flies, in the form of a 
vulture, as the goddess of victory at the head of the troops led to war by the 
Pharaoh. 

The crook-shaped staflf, and the whip or scourge are emblems rarely 
missing from the repre.sentations of the Pharaohs, and several of the gods : 
they probably refer to the duty of a king, who must exercise both restraint and 
coercion. 


Uarda, 


^ 9 ^ 

march through the desert. The butler no longer thinks 
of drinking-bouts, but brings me wine in great stone 
jars ; we pour it into well-closed skins for the soldiers, 
and the best sorts we put into strong flasks, carefully 
sealed with pitch, that they may perform the journey 
uninjured, and warm and rejoice the hearts of our 
heroes. All that, and much more, I manage and ar- 
range, and my days pass in hard work. The Gods send 
me no bright visions in the night, for after utter fatigue 
I sleep soundly.- But I know that I am of use. I can 
hold my head proudly, because in some degree I re- 
semble my great father; and if the king thinks of me 
at all I know he can rejoice in the doings of his child. 
That is the end of it, Nefert — and I only say. Come 
and join me, w'ork with me, prove yourself of use, and 
compel Mena to think of his wife, not with affection 
only, but with pride.” Nefert let her head sink slowly 
on Bent-Anat’s bosom, threw her arms round her neck, 
and wept like a child. At last she composed herselt 
and said humbly : 

“Take me to school, and teach me to be useful.” 

“ I knew,” said the princess smiling, “ that you only 
needed a guiding hand. Believe me, you will soon 
learn to couple content and longing. But now hear 
this ! At present go home to your mother, for it is late; 
and meet her lovingly, for that is the will of the Gods. 
To-morrow morning I will go to see you, and beg 
Katuti to let you come to me as companion in the 
place of my lost friend. The day after to-morrow 
you will come to me in the palace. You can live in 
the rooms of my departed friend and begin, as she 
had done, to help me in my work. May these hours 
be blest to you !” 


UARDA. 


299 


CHAPTER XXII. 


At the time of this conversation the leech Neb- 
secht still lingered in front of the hovel of the para- 
schites, and waited with growing impatience for the 
old man’s return. 

At first he trembled for him ; then he entirely forgot 
the danger into which he had thrown him, and only 
hoped for the fulfilment of his desires, and for wonder- 
ful revelations through his investigations of the human 
heart. 

For some minutes he gave himself up to scientific 
considerations ; but he became more and more agitated 
by anxiety for the paraschites, and by the exciting 
vicinity of Uarda. 

For hours he had been alone with her, for her 
father and grandmother could no longer stop away 
from their occupations. The former must go to escort 
prisoners of war to Hermonthis, and the old woman, 
since her granddaughter had been old enough to 
undertake the small duties ot the household, had been 
one of the wailing-women, who, with hair all dis- 
hevelled, accompanied the corpse on its way to the 
grave, weeping, and lamenting, and casting Nile-mud 
on their forehead and breast.. Uarda still lay, when 
the sun was sinking, in front of the hut. 

She looked weary and pale. Her long hair had 
come undone, and once more got entangled with the 
straw of her humble couch. If Nebsecht went near 
her to feel her pulse or to speak to her she carefully 
turned her face from him. 


tTARDA. 


^00 


Nevertheless when the sun disappeared behind the 
rocks he bent over her once more, and said : 

“ It is growing cool ; shall I carry you indoors ?” 

“ Let me alone,” she said crossly. “ I am hot, keep 
farther away. I am no longer ill, and could go in- 
doors by myself if I wished ; but grandmother will be 
here directly.” 

Nebsecht rose, and sat down on a hen-coop that 
was some paces' from Uarda, and asked stammering: 

“ Shall I go farther off ?” 

“ Do as you please,” she answered. 

“You are not kind,” he said sadly. 

“You sit looking at me,” said Uarda, “I cannot 
bear it ; and I am uneasy — for grandfather was quite 
different this morning from his usual self, and talked 
strangely about dying, and about the great price that 
was asked of him for curing me. Then he begged me 
never to forget him, and was so excited and so strange. 
He is so long away; I wish he were here, with me.” 

And with these words Uarda began to cry silently. 
A nameless anxiety for the paraschites seized Nebsecht, 
and it struck him to the heart that he had demanded 
a human life in return for the mere fulfilment of a duty. 
He knew the law well enough, and knew that the old 
man would be compelled without respite or delay to 
empty the cup of poison if he were found guilty of the 
theft of a human heart. 

It was dark: Uarda ceased weeping, and said to 
the surgeon: 

“ Can it be possible that he has gone into the city 
to borrow the great sum of money that thou — or thy 
temple — demandest for thy medicine? But there is 
the princess’s golden bracelet, and half of father’s 


UARDA. 


301 

prize, and in the chest two years’ wages that grand- 
mother had earned by wailing, lie untouched. Is all 
that not enough ? ” 

The girl’s last question was full of resentment and 
reproach, and Nebsecht, whose perfect sincerity was 
part of his very being, was silent, as he would not 
venture to say yes. He had asked more in return for 
his help than gold or silver. Now he remembered Pen- 
taur’s warning, and when the jackals began to bark he 
took up the fire-stick,* and lighted some fuel that was 
lying ready. Then he asked himself what Uarda’s 
fate would be without her grandparents, and a strange 
plan which had floated vaguely before him for some 
hours, began now to take a distinct outline and in- 
telligible form. He determined if the old man did 
not return to ask the kolchytes or embalmers to admit 
him into their guild** — and for the sake of his adroit- 
ness they were not likely to refuse him — then he would 
make Uarda his wife, and live apart from the world, 
for her, for his studies, and for his new calling, in 
which he hoped to learn a great deal. What did he 
care for comfort and proprieties, for recognition from 
his fellow-men, and a superior position ! 

He could hope to advance more quickly along the 
new stony path than on the old beaten track. The im- 
pulse to communicate his acquired knowledge to 
others he did not feel. Knowledge in itself amply 
satisfied him, and he thought no more of his ties to 
the House of Seti. For three whole days he had not 


* The hieroglyphic sign Sam seems to me to represent the wooden stick 
used to produce hre (as among some savage tribes) by rapid friction in a 
hollow piece of wood. 

**■ This guild still existed in Roman times, and we have much informatips 
ahdUt it in various Greek papyri. 


302 


UARDA. 


changed his garments, no razor had touched his chin 
or his scalp, not a drop of water had wetted his hands 
or his feet. He felt half bewildered and almost as if 
he had already become an embalmer, nay even a 
paraschites, one of the most despised of human beings. 
This self-degradation had an infinite charm, for it 
brought him down to the level of Uarda, and she, 
lying near him^ sick and anxious, with her dishevelled 
hair, exactly suited the future which he painted to 
himself. 

“Do you hear nothing?” Uarda asked suddenly. 

He listened. In the valley there was a barking ot 
dogs, and soon the paraschites and his wife appeared, 
and, at the door of their hut, took leave of old Hekt, 
who had met them on her return from Thebes. 

“You have been gone along time,” cried Uarda, 
when her grandmother once more stood before her. “ I 
have been so frightened.” 

“The doctor was with you,” said the old woman 
going into the house to prepare their simple meal, 
while the paraschites knelt down by his granddaugh- 
ter, and caressed her tenderly, but yet with respect, 
as if he were her faithful servant rather than her blood- 
relation. 

Then he rose, and gave to Nebsecht, who was 
trembling with excitement, the bag of coarse linen 
which he was in the habit of carrying tied to him by 
a narrow belt. 

“The heart is in that,” he whispered to the leech; 
“take it out, and give me back the bag, for my knife 
is in it, and I want it.” 

Nebsecht took the heart out of the covering with 
trembling hands and laid it carefully down, Then he 


UARDA. 


303 

felt in the breast of his dress, and going up to the 
paraschites he whispered: 

“ Here, take the writing, hang it round your neck, 
and when you die I will have the book of scripture 
wrapped up in your mummy cloths like a great man. 
But that is not enough. The property that I inherited 
is in the hands of my brother, who is a good man of 
business, and I have not touched the interest for ten 
years. I will send it to you, and you and your wife 
shall enjoy an old age free from care.” 

The paraschites had taken the little bag with the 
strip of papyrus, and heard the leech to the end. 
Then he turned from him saying: “Keep thy money; 
we are quits. That is if the child gets well,” he 
added humbly. 

“She is already half cured,” stammered Nebsecht. 
“But why will you — why won’t you accept — ” 

“Because till to day I have never begged nor bor- 
rowed,” said the paraschites, “and I will not begin in 
my old age. Life for life. But what I have done this 
day not Rameses with all his treasure could repay.” 

Nebsecht looked down, and knew not how to an- 
swer the old man. 

His wife now came out; she set a bowl of lentils 
that she had hastily warmed before the two men, with 
radishes and onions,* then she helped Uarda, who did 
not need to be carried, into the house, and invited 
Nebsecht to share their meal. He accepted her in- 
vitation, for he had eaten nothing since the previous 
evening. 


* Radishes, onions, and garlic were the hors-d’oeuvre of an Egyptiaa 
dinner. 1,600 talents worth were consumed, according to Herodotus, dujring 
the building of the pyramid of Cheops =;^36o,ooo, 


304 


UARDA. 


When the old woman had once more disappeared 
indoors, he asked the paraschites: 

“ Whose heart is it that you have brought me, and 
how did it come into your hands ? ” 

“Tell me first,” said the other, “why thou hast 
laid such a heavy sin upon my soul ? ” 

“ Because I want to investigate the structure of the 
human heart,” said Nebsecht, “so that, when I meet 
with diseased hearts, I may be able to cure them.” 

The paraschites looked for a long time at the 
ground in silence; then he said — 

“ Art thou speaking the truth ? ” 

“Yes,” replied the leech with convincing emphasis. 
“I am glad,” said the old man, “for thou givest 
help to the poor.” 

“As willingly as to the rich!” exclaimed Nebsecht. 
“But tell me now where you got the heart.” 

“ I went into the house of the embalmer,” said the 
old man, after he had selected a few large flints, to 
which, with crafty blows, he gave the shape of knives, 
“and there I found three bodies in which I had to 
make the eight prescribed incisions with my flint-knife. 
When the dead lie there undressed on the wooden 
bench they all look alike, and the begger lies as still 
as the favorite son of a king. But I knew very well 
who lay before me. The strong old body in the 
middle of the table was the corpse of the Superior of 
the temple of Hatasu, and beyond, close by each 
other, were laid a stone-mason of the Necropolis, and 
a poor girl from the strangers’ quarter, who had died 
of consumption — two miserable wasted figures. I had 
known the Prophet well, for I had met him a hundred 
times in his gilt litter, and we always called him Rui, 


UARDA. 


305 


the rich. I did my duty by all three, I was driven 
away with the usual stoning, and then I ari*anged the 
inward parts of the bodies with my mates. Those of 
the Prophet are to be preserved later in an alabaster 
canopus,* those of the mason and the girl were put 
back in their bodies. 

“ Then I went up to the three bodies, and I asked 
myself, to which I should do such a wrong as to rob 
him of his heart. I turned to the two poor ones, and 
I hastily went up to the sinning girl. Then I heard 
the voice of the demon that cried out in my heart : 
‘The girl was poor and despised like you while she 
walked on Seb,** perhaps she may find compensation 
and peace in the other world if you do not mutilate 
her;’ and when I turned to the mason’s lean corpse, 
and looked at his hands, which were harder and 
rougher than my own, the demon whispered the same. 
Then I stood before the strong, stout corpse of the 
prophet Rui, who died of apoplexy, and I remembered 
the honor and the riches that he had enjoyed on 
earth, and that he at least for a time had known hap- 
piness and ease. And as soon as I was alone, I 
slipped my hand into the bag, and changed the sheep’s 
heart for his. 

“ Perhaps I am doubly guilty for playing such an 
accursed trick with the heart of a high-priest; but 
Rui’s body will be hung round with a hundred amu- 
lets, Scarabaei*** will be placed over his heart, and holy 

* This vase was called canopus at a later date. There were four of 
them for each mummy. 

** Seb is the earth ; Plutarch calls Seb Chronos. He is often spoken of as 
" the father of the gods ” on the monuments. He is the god of time, and as. the 
Egyptians regarded matter as eternal, it is not by accident that the sign which 
represented th^e earth was also used for eternity. 

*** Tinitations of the sacred beetle Scarabseus made of various materials were 


^o6 UARDA. 

oil and sacred sentences will preserve him from all 
the fiends on his road to Amend,* while no one will 
devote helping talismans to the poor. And then ! thou 
hast sworn, in that world, in the hall of judgment, to 
take my guilt on thyself.” 

Nebsecht gave the old man his hand. 

“ That I will,” said he, “ and I should have chosen 
as you did. Now take this draught, divide it in four 
parts, and give it to Uarda for four evenings following.** 
Begin this evening, and by the day after to-morrow I 
think she will be quite well. I will come again and 
look after her. Now go to rest, and let me stay a 
while out here; before the star of Isis*** is extinguished 
I will be gone, for they have long been expecting me 
at the temple.” 

When the paraschites came out of his hut the next 
morning, Nebsecht had vanished; but a blood-stained 
cloth that lay by the remains of the fire showed the 
old man that the impatient investigator had examined 
the heart of the high-priest during the night, and per- 
haps cut it up. 

Terror fell upon him, and in agony of mind he 
threw himself on his knees as the golden bark of the 
Sun-God appeared on the horizon, and prayed fervently, 
first for Uarda, and then for the salvation of his im- 
perilled soul. 

He rose encouraged, convinced himself that his 
granddaughter was progressing towards recovery, bid 
farewell to his wife, took his flint knife and his bronze 

frequently put into the mummies in the place of the heart. Large specimens 
have often the 26th, 30th, and 64th chapters of the Book of the Dead engraved 
on them, as they treat of the heart 

* Under-world. ** A very frequent direction in the medical papyri. 

*** Sirius, or the Sothis star. 


UARDA. 


3^7 


hook,* and went to the house of the embalmer to follow 
his dismal calling. 

The group of buildings in which the greater num- 
ber of the corpses from Thebes went through the pro- 
cesses of mummifying, lay on the bare desert-land at 
some distance from his hovel, southwards from the 
House of Seti at the foot of the mountain. They oc- 
cupied by themselves a fairly large space, enclosed by a 
rough wall of dried mud-bricks. 

The bodies were brought in through the great gate 
towards the Nile, and delivered to the kolchytes,** 
while the priests, paraschites, and taricheutes,*** bearers 
and assistants, who here did their daily work, as well as 
innumerable water-carriers who came up from the Nile, 
loaded with skins, found their way into the establish- 
ment by a side gate. 

At the farthest northern end stood a handsome 
building of wood, with a separate gate, in which the 
orders of the bereaved were taken, and often indeed 
those of men still in active life, who thought to provide 
betimes for their suitable interment.! 

The crowd in this house was considerable. About 
fifty men and women were moving in it at the present 
moment, all of different ranks; and not only from Thebes 
but from many smaller towns of Upper Egypt, to make 

* The brains of corpses were drawn out of the nose with a hook. 
Herodotus ii., 87. 

** The whole guild of embalmers, 

*** Salters of the bodies. 

t The well-known passages in Herodotus and in Diodorus, are amply 
supported by the manuscripts of the ancient Egyptians. In Maspero’s able 
work on a papyrus published by Mariette, and on one in the Louvre, entitled, 
Mhnoires sur quelgues papyrus du louvre, and Le rituel de I’etnbautne- 
ment, we have a mass of hitherto unknown details on the ritual for embalm- 
ing. Czermak’s physiological investigation of two mumrnies led to very in- 
teresting results, and demonstrated the wonderful preservation of even the most 
delicate tissues. His researches were printed in “ Sitzungsberichten der k. k. 
Akademie der Wissenschaften,” Vienna, 1852. The bilingual papyrus of Rhind 
also affords valuable information. 


3o8 


LfARDA. 


])urchases or to give commissions to the functionaries 
who were busy here. 

This bazaar of the dead was well supplied, for cof- 
fins of every form stood up against the walls, from the 
simplest chest to the richly gilt and painted coffer, in 
form resembling a mummy.. On wooden shelves lay 
endless rolls of coarse and fine linen, in which the 
limbs of the mummies were enveloped, and which were 
manufactured by the people of the embalming establish- 
ment under the protection of the tutelar goddesses of 
weavers, Neith, Isis and Nephthys, though some were 
ordered from a distance, particularly from Sais. 

There was free choice for the visitors of this pattern- 
room in the matter of mummy-cases and cloths, as well 
as of necklets, scarabaei, statuettes, Uza-eyes, girdles, 
head-rests, triangles, split-rings, staves, and other sym- 
bolic objects, which were attached to the dead as 
sacred amulets, or bound up in the wrappings. 

There were innumerable stamps of baked clay, 
which were buried in the earth to show any one who 
might dispute the limits, how far each grave extended, 
images of the gods, which were laid in the sand to 
jmrify and sanctify* it — for by nature it belonged to 
Seth-Typhon — as well as the figures called Schebti, 
which were either enclosed several together in little 
boxes, or laid separately in the grave ; it was supposed 
that they would help the dead to till the fields of the 
blessed with the pick-axe, plough, and seed-bag which 
they carried on their shoulders. 

The widow and the steward of the wealthy Su- 


* The purpose of the amulets is In most cases known, as almost every one 
hxs a chapter of the book of the dead devoted to it. The little clay cones and 
images are found In vast numbers, and may be met with in every Museum. 


uarda. 


309 

perior of the temple of Hatasu, and with them a priest 
of high rank, were in eager discussion with the officials 
of the embalming-house, and were selecting the most 
costly of the patterns of mummy-cases which were 
offered to their inspection, the finest linen, and amulets 
of malachite, and lapis-lazuli, of blood-stone, carnelian 
and green felspar,* as well as the most elegant ala- 
baster canopi for the deceased; his body was to be 
enclosed first in a sort of case of papier-mache, and 
then in a wooden and a stone coffin. They wrote his 
name on a wax tablet which was ready for the purpose, 
with those of his parents, his wife and children, and all 
his titles; they ordered what verses should be written on 
his coffin, what on the papyrus-rolls to be enclosed in it, 
and what should be set out above his name. With re- 
gard to the inscription on the walls of the tomb, the ped- 
estal of the statue to be placed there and the face of the 
stele** to be erected in it, yet further particulars would 
be given ; a priest of the temple of Seti was charged to 
wTite them, and to draw up a catalogue of the rich offer- 
ings of the survivors. The last could be done later, 
when, after the division of the property, the amount of 
the fortune he had left could be ascertained. The mere 
mummifying of the body with the finest oils and es- 
sences, cloths, amulets, and cases, would cost a talent 
of silver, without the stone sarcophagus.*** 

The widow wore a long mourning robe, her forehead 
was lightly daubed with Nile-mud, and in the midst of 
her chaffering with the functionaries of the embalming- 

* The use of this material proves the extent of commerce in these early 
times, for green felspar is now known to be found only in countries remote from 
Egypt. 

** Stone tablet with round pediment. 

*** According to Diodorus i., 91, first class embalming cost one silver 
talent, second class twenty minae. 


310 


UARDA. 


house, whose prices she complained of as enormous 
and rapacious, from time to time she broke out into a 
loud wail of grief — as the occasion demanded. 

More modest citizens finished their commissions 
sooner, though it was not unusual for the income of a 
whole year to be sacrificed for the embalming of the 
head of a household — the father or the mother of a 
family. The mummifying of the poor was cheap, and 
that of the poorest had to be provided by the kolchytes 
as a tribute to the king, to whom also they were obliged 
to pay a tax in linen from their looms. 

This place of business was carefully separated from 
the rest of the establishment, which none but those 
who were engaged in the processes carried on there 
were on any account permitted to enter. The kolchytes 
formed a closely-limited guild at the head of which 
stood a certain number of priests, and from among 
them the masters of the many thousand members were 
chosen. This guild was highly respected, even the 
taricheutes, who were entrusted with the actual work 
of embalming, could venture to mix with the other 
citizens, although in Thebes itself people always avoided 
them with a certain horror; only the paraschites, whose 
duty it was to open the body, bore the whole curse of 
uncleanness. Certainly the place where these people 
fulfilled their office was dismal enough. 

The stone chamber in which the bodies were 
opened, and the halls in which they were prepared 
with salt, had adjoining them a variety of laboratories 
and depositaries for drugs and preparations of every 
description. 

In a court-yard, protected from the rays of the sun 
only by an awning, was a large walled bason, contain- 


UARDA. 


3* 


ing a solution of natron, in which the bodies were 
salted, and they were then dried in a stone vault, 
artificially supplied with hot air. 

The little wooden houses of the weavers, as well 
as the work-shops of the case-joiners and decorators, 
stood in numbers round the pattern-room; but the 
farthest off, and much the largest of the buildings of 
the establishment, was a very long low structure, solidly 
built of stone and well roofed in, where the prepared 
bodies were enveloped in their cerements, tricked out 
in amulets, and made ready for their journey to the 
next world. What took place in this building — into 
which the laity were admitted, but never for more than 
a few minutes — was to the last degree mysterious, for 
here the gods themselves appeared to be engaged with 
the mortal bodies. 

Out of the windows which opened on the street, 
recitations, hymns, and lamentations sounded night and 
day. The priests who fulfilled their office here wore 
masks like the divinities of the under-world.* Many 
were the representatives of Anubis, with the jackal- 
head, assisted by boys with masks of the so-called 
child- Horus. At the head of each mummy stood or 
squatted a. wailing- woman with the emblems of Neph- 
thys, and one at its feet with those of Isis. 

Every separate limb of the deceased was dedi- 
cated to a particular divinity by the aid of holy oils, 
charms, and sentences; a specially prepared cloth was 
wrapped round each muscle, every drug and every 

* There are many indications of this in the tomb paintings, and a papyrus 
(III. of the museum at Bulaq) confirms the idea. The art of moulding masks 
in a paste resembling papier-mache was early known to the Egyptians, and 
such a mask of the dead IS not unfrequently found at the head of mummy 
cases. 


312 


UARDA. 


bandage owed its origin to some divinity, and the con- 
fusion of sounds, of disguised figures, and of various 
perfumes, had a stupefying effect on those who visited 
this chamber. It need not be said that the whole em- 
balming establishment and its neighborhood was en- 
veloped in a cloud of powerful resinous fumes, of sweet 
attar, of lasting musk, and pungent spices. 

When the wind blew from the west it was wafted 
across the Nile to Thebes, and this was regarded as an 
evil omen, for from the south-west comes the wind that 
enfeebles the energy of men — the fatal simoon. 

In the court of the pattern-house stood several 
groups of citizens from Thebes, gathered round different 
individuals, to whom they were expressing their sympa- 
thy. A new-comer, the superintendent of the victims 
of the temple of Amon, who seemed to be known to 
many and was greeted with respect, announced, even 
before he went to condole with Rui’s widow, in a tone 
full of horror at what had happened, that an omen, 
significant of the greatest misfortune, had occurred in 
Thebes, in a spot no less sacred than the very temple of 
Amon himself. 

Many inquisitive listeners stood round him while 
he related that the Regent Ani, in his joy at the victory 
of his troops in Ethiopia, had distributed wine with a 
lavish hand to the garrison of Thebes, and also to the 
watchmen of the temple of Amon, and that, while the 
people were carousing, wolves* had broken into the 

* Wolves have now disappeared from Egypt ; they were sacred animals, 
and were worshipped and buried at Lykopolis, the present Siut, where mummies 
of wolves have been found. Herodotus says that if a wolf was found dead he 
was buried, and Aelian states that the herb Lykoktonon, which was poisonous to 
wolves, might on no account be brought into the city, where they were held sac- 
red. 'I'he wolf numbered among the sacred animals is the canis lupaster, which 
exists in Egypt at the present day. Besides this species there are three varieties 
of wild dogs, the jackal, fox, and fenek, canis cerda. 


UARDA. 


313 

Stable of the sacred rams.* Some were killed, but 
the noblest ram, which Rameses himself had sent as a 
gift from Mendes when he set out for the war — the 
magnificent beast which Amon had chosen as the 
tenement of his spirit,** was found, torn in ])ieces, 
by the soldiers, who immediately terrified the whole 
city with the news. At the same hour news had come 
from Memphis that the sacred bull Apis was dead. 

All the people who had collected round the priest, 
broke out into a far-sounding cry of woe, in which he 
himself and Rui’s widow vehemently joined. 

The buyers and functionaries rushed out of the 
pattern-room, and from the mummy-house the tari- 
cheutes, paraschites and assistants; the weavers left 
their looms, and all, as soon as they had learned what 
had happened, took part in the lamentations, howling 
and wailing, tearing their hair and covering their faces 
with dust. 

The noise was loud and distracting, and when its 
violence diminished, and the workpeople went back to 
their business, the east wind brought the echo of the 
cries of the dwellers in the Necropolis, perhaps too, 
those of the citizens of Thebes itself. 

“ Bad news,” said the inspector of the victims, 
“ cannot fail to reach us soon from the king and the 
army; he will regret the death of the ram which we 


* There was also a bull which was sacred to Amon. 

** The ram was especially worshipped at Mendes. The ruins of this citv 
have been found at a short distance from Mansura in the Delta, and Brugsch 
has interpreted some inscriptions which were found there, and which throw 
new light on the woi-ship of the ram, and on the accounts of it which have 
been handed down to us. The ram is called “ Ba,” which is also the name foi 
the Soul, and the sacred rams were supposed to be the living embodiment ol 
the soul of Ra. 


21 


UARDA. 


3H 

called by his name more than that of Apis. It is a 
bad — a very bad omen.” 

“ My lost husband Rui, who rests in Osiris, foresaw 
it all,” said the widow. “ If only I dared to speak I 
could tell a good deal that many might find un- 
pleasant.” 

The inspector of sacrifices smiled, for he knew 
that the late superior of the temple of Hatasu had 
been an adherent of the old royal family, and he 
replied : 

“ The Sun of Rameses may be for a time covered 
with clouds, but neither those who fear it nor those 
who desire it will live to see its setting.” 

The priest coldly saluted the lady, and went into 
the house of a weaver in which he had business, and 
the widow got into her litter which was waiting at 
the gate. 

The old paraschites Pinem had joined with his 
fellows in the lamentation for the sacred beasts, and 
was now sitting on the hard pavement of the dissecting 
room to eat his morsel of food — for it was noon. 

The stone room in which he was eating his meal 
was badly lighted ; the daylight came through a small 
opening in the roof, over which the sun stood per- 
pendicularly, and a shaft of bright rays, in which 
danced the whirling motes, shot down through the 
twilight on to the stone pavement. Mummy-cases 
leaned against all the walls, and on smooth polished 
slabs lay bodies covered with coarse cloths. A rat 
scudded now and then across the floor, and from the 
wide cracks between the stones sluggish scorpions 
crawled out. 


UARDA. 


315 

The old paraschites was long since blunted to the 
horror which pervaded this locality. He had spread a 
coarse napkin, and carefully laid on it the provisions 
which his wife had put into his satchel; first half a 
cake of bread, then a little salt, and finally a radish. 

But the bag was not yet empty. 

He put his hand in and found a piece of meat 
wrapped up in two cabbage-leaves. Old Hekt had 
brought a leg of a gazelle from Thebes for Uarda, and 
he now saw that the women had put a piece of it into 
his little sack for his refreshment. He looked at the 
gift with emotion, but he did not venture to touch it, 
for he felt as if in doing so he should be robbing the 
sick girl. While eating the bread and the radish he 
contemplated the piece of meat as if it were some 
costly jewel, and when a fly dared to settle on it he 
drove it off indignantly. 

At last he tasted the meat, and thought of many 
former noon-day meals, and how he had often found 
a flower in the satchel, that Uarda had placed there to 
please him, with the bread. His kind old eyes filled 
with tears, and his whole heart swelled with gratitude 
and love. He looked up, and his glance fell on the 
table, and he asked himself how he would have felt if 
instead of the old priest, robbed of his heart, the sun- 
shine of his old age, his granddaughter, were lying 
there motionless. A cold shiver ran over him, and he 
felt that his own heart would not have been too great 
a price to pay for her recovery. And yet! In the 
course of his long life he had experienced so much 
suffering and wrong, that he could not imagine 
any hope of a better lot in the other world. Then 
he drew out the bond Nebsecht had given him, held 


3x6 


UARDA. 


it up with both hands, as if to show it to the Im- 
mortals, and particularly to the judges in the hall of 
truth and judgment, that they might not reckon with 
him for the crime he had committed — not for him- 
self but for another — and that they might not refuse 
to justify Rui, whom he had robbed of his heart. 

While he thus lifted his soul in devotion, matters 
were getting warm outside the dissecting room. He 
thought he heard his name spoken, and scarcely had 
he raised his head to listen when a taricheut came 
in and desired him to follow him. 

In front of the rooms, filled with resinous odors 
and incense, in which the actual process of embalming 
was carried on, a number of taricheutes were standing 
and looking at an object in an alabaster bowl. The 
knees of the old man knocked together as he recognized 
the heart of the beast which he had substituted for 
that of the Prophet. 

The chief of the taricheutes asked him whether he 
had opened the body of the dead priest. 

Pinem stammered out “ Yes.” 

Whether this was his heart ? 

The old man nodded affirmatively. 

The taricheutes looked at each other, whispered 
together ; then one of them went away, and returned 
soon with the inspector of victims from the temple of 
Amon, whom he had found in the house of the weaver, 
and the chief of the kolchytes. 

“ Show me the heart,” said the superintendent of 
the sacrifices as he approached the vase. “ I can decide 
in the dark if you have seen rightly. I examine a 
hundred animals every day. Give it here ! — By all the 
Gods of Heaven and Hell that is the heart of a ram !” 


UARDA. 


317 


“ It was found in the breast of Rui,” said one of 
the taricheutes decisively. “It was opened yesterday 
in the presence of us all by this old paraschites.” 

“It is extraordinary,” said the priest of Amon. 
“ And incredible. But perhaps an exchange was 
effected. — Did you slaughter any victims here yester- 
day or — ?” 

“We are purifying ourselves,” the chief of the 
kolchytes interrupted, “for the great festival of the 
valley, and for ten days no beast can have been killed 
here for food ; besides, the stables and slaughter- 
houses are a long way from this, on the other side of 
the linen-factories.” 

“ It is strange 1” replied the priest. “ Preserve this 
heart carefully, kolchytes : or, better still, let it be 
enclosed in a case. We will take it over to the chief 
prophet of Amon. It would seem that some miracle 
has happened.” 

“ The heart belongs to the Necropolis,” answered 
the chief kolchytes, “ and it would therefore be more 
fitting if we took it to the chief priest of the temple 
of Seti, Ameni.” 

“ You command here!” said the other. “Let us go.” 

In a few minutes the priest of Amon and the 
chief of the kolchytes were being carried towards the 
valley in their litters. A taricheut followed them, who 
sat on a seat between two asses, and carefully carried 
a casket of ivory, in which reposed the ram’s heart. 

The old paraschites watched the priests disappear 
behind the tamarisk bushes. He longed to run aftei 
them, and tell them everything. 

His conscience quaked with self reproach, and if 
his sluggish intelligence did not enable him to take in 


3iS 


tJARDA. 


at a glance all the results that his deed might entail, 
he still could guess that he had sown a seed whence 
deceit of every kind must grow. He felt as if he had 
fallen altogether into sin and falsehood, and that the 
goddess of truth, whom he had all his life honestly 
served, had reproachfully turned her back on him. 
After what had happened never could he hope to be 
pronounced a “truth-speaker” by the judges of the 
dead. Lost, thrown away, was the aim and end of a 
long life, rich in self-denial and prayer! His soul 
shed tears of blood, a wild sighing sounded in his 
ears, which saddened his spirit, and when he went 
back to his work again, and wanted to remove the 
soles of the feet* from a body, his hand trembled so 
that he could not hold the knife. 

CHAPTER XXHI. 

The news of the end of the sacred ram of Amon, 
and of the death of the bull Apis of Memphis, had 
reached the House of Seti, and was received there with 
loud lamentation, in wliich all its inhabitants joined, from 
the chief haruspex down to the smallest boy in the 
school-courts. 

The superior of the institution, Ameni, had been 
for three days in Thebes, and was expected to return 
to-day. His arrival was looked for with anxiety and 
excitement by many. The chief of the haruspices was 
eager for it that he might hand over the imprisoned 

* One of the mummies of Prague which were dissected by Czermak, had 
the soles of the feet removed and laid on the breast. We learn from 
Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead that this was done that the sacred tlooi 
of the hall of judgment might not be defiled when the dead were summoned 
before Osiris. 


UARDA. 


319 

scholars to condign punishment, and complain to him 
of Pentaur and Bent-Anat ; the initiated knew that 
important transactions must have been concluded on 
the farther side of the Nile; and the rebellious disciples 
knew that now stern justice would be dealt to them. 

The insurrectionary troop were locked into an 
open court upon bread and w'ater, and as the usual 
room of detention of the establishment was too small 
for them all, for two nights they had had to sleep in a 
loft on thin straw mats. The young spirits were excited 
to the highest pitch, but each expressed his feelings 
in quite a different manner. 

Bent-Anat’s brother, Rameses’ son, Rameri, had ex- 
perienced the same treatment as his fellows, whom 
yesterday he had led into every sort of mischief, with 
even more audacity than usual, but to-day he hung 
his head. 

In a corner of the court sat Anana, Pentaur’s 
favorite scholar, hiding his face in his hands which 
rested on his knees. Rameri went up to him, touched 
his shoulders and said : 

“We have played the game, and now must bear 
the consequences for good and for evil. Are you not 
ashamed of yourself, old boy ? Your eyes are wet, and 
the drops here on your hands have not fallen from 
the clouds. You who are seventeen, and in a few 
months will be a scribe and a grown man !” 

Anana looked at the prince, dried his eyes quickly, 
and said : 

“ I was the ring-leader. Ameni will turn me out 
of the place, and I must return disgraced to my poor 
mother, who has no one in the world but me.” 


320 


UARDA. 


“ Poor fellow !” said Rameri kindly. “ It was striking 
at random ! If only our attempt had done Pentaur 
any good !” 

“We have done him harm, on the contrary,” said 
Anana vehemently, “ and have behaved like fools !” 

Rameri nodded in full assent, looked thoughtful 
for a moment, and then said : 

“ Do you know, Anana, that you were not the ring- 
leader ? The trick was planned in this crazy brain ; 
I take the whole blame on my own shoulders. I am 
the son of Rameses, and Ameni will be less hard on 
me than on you.” 

“ He will examine us all,” replied Anana, “ and I 
will be punished sooner than tell a lie.” 

Rameri colored. 

“ Have you ever known my tongue sin against the 
lovely daughter of Ra ?” he exclaimed. “ But look 
here ! did I stir up Antef, Hapi, Sent and all the others 
or no ? Who but I advised you to find out Pentaur ? 
Did I threaten to beg my father to take me from the 
school of Seti or not ? I was the instigator of the 
mischief, I pulled the wires, and if we are questioned 
let me speak first. Not one of you is to mention 
Anana’s name ; do you hear ? not one of you, and if 
they flog us or deprive us of our food we all stick to 
this, that I was guilty of all the mischief” 

“You are a brave fellow!” said the son of the 
chief priest of Amon, shaking his right hand, while 
Anana held his left. 

The prince freed himself laughing from their 
grasp. 

“ Now the old man may come home,” he exclaimed, 
“ we are ready for liim. But all the same I will ask 


UARDA. 


321 


my father to send me to Chennu, as sure as my name 
is Rameri, if they do not recall Pentaur.” 

“He treated us like school-boys !” said the eldest 
of the young malefactors. 

“ And with reason,” replied Rameri, “ I respect him 
all the more for it. You all think I am a careless dog 
— but I have my own ideas, and I will speak the words 
of wisdom.” 

With these words he looked round on his com- 
panions with comical gravity, and continued — imitating 
Ameni’s manner: 

“ Great men are distinguished from little men by 
this — they scorn and contemn all which flatters their 
vanity, or seems to them for the moment desirable, or 
even useful, if it is not compatible with the laws which 
they recognize, or conducive to some great end which 
they have set before them ; even though that end may 
not be reached till after their death. 

“ I have learned this, partly from my father, but 
partly I have thought it out for myself ; and now I ask 
you, could Pentaur as ‘a great man’ have dealt with 
us better ?” 

“You have put into words exactly what I myself 
have thought ever since yesterday,” cried Anana. 
“ We have behaved like babies, and instead of carrying 
our point we have brought ourselves and Pentaur into 
disgrace.” 

The rattle of an approaching chariot was now 
audible, and Rameri exclaimed, interrupting Anana : 

“ It is he. Courage,, boys ! I am the guilty one. 
He will not dare to have me thrashed — but he will 
stab me with looks !” 


322 


UARDA. 


Ameni descended quickly from his chariot. The 
gate-keeper informed him that the chief of the 
kolchytes, and the inspector of victims from the temple 
of Amon, desired to speak with him. 

“ They must wait,” said the Prophet shortly. “ Show 
them meanwhile into the garden pavilion. Where is 
the chief haruspex?” 

He had hardly spoken wjien the vigorous old man 
for whom he was enquiring hurried to meet him, to 
make him acquainted with all that had occurred in 
his absence. But the high-priest had already heard 
in Thebes all that his colleague was anxious to tell 
him. 

When Ameni was absent from the House of Seti, 
he caused accurate information to be brought to him 
every morning of what had taken place there. 

Now when the old man began his story he inter- 
rupted him. 

“ I know everything,” he said. “ The disciples cling 
to Pentaur, and have committed a folly for his sake, 
and you met the princess Bent-Anat with him in the 
temple of Hatasu, to which he had admitted a woman 
of low rank before she had been purified. These are 
grave matters, and must be seriously considered, but 
not to-day. Make yourself easy; Pentaur will not 
escape punishment ; but for to-day we must recall him 
to this temple, for we have need of him to-morrow for 
the solemnity of the feast of the valley. No one 
shall meet him as an enemy till he is condemned; 
I desire this of you, and charge you to repeat it to 
the others,” 

The haruspex endeavored to represent to his 
superior what a scandal would arise from this un- 


UARDA. 


323 


timely clemency ; but Ameni did not allow him to talk, 
he demanded his ring back, called a young priest, 
delivered the precious signet into his charge, and 
desired him to get into his chariot that was waiting 
at the door, and carry to Pentaur the command, in 
his name, to return to the temple of Seti. 

The haruspex submitted, though deeply vexed, and 
asked whether the guilty boys were also to go un- 
punished. 

“No more than Pentaur,” answered Ameni. “But 
can you call this school-boy’s trick guilt ? Leave the 
children to their fun, and their imprudence. The 
educator is the destroyer, if he always and only keeps 
his eyes open, and cannot close them at the right 
moment. Before life demands of us the exercise of 
serious duties we have a mighty over-abundance of 
vigor at our disposal; the child exhausts it in play, 
and the boy in building wonder-castles with the 
hammer and chisel of his fancy, in inventing follies. 
You shake your head, Septah ! but I tell you, the 
audacious tricks of the boy are the fore-runners of 
the deeds of the man. I shall let one only of the 
boys suffer for what is past, and I should let him even 
go unpunished if I had not other pressing reasons 
for keeping him away from our festival.” 

The haruspex did not contradict his chief ; for he 
knew that when Ameni’s eyes flashed so suddenly, and 
his demeanor, usually so measured, was as restless as 
at present, something serious was brewing. 

The high-priest understood what was passing in 
Septah’s mind. 

“ You do not understand me now,” said he. “ But 
this evening, at the meeting of the initiated, you shall 


324 


UARDA. 


know all. Great events are stirring. The brethren in 
the temple of Amon, on the other shore, have fallen 
olT from what must always be the Holiest to us white- 
robed priests, and will stand in our way when the 
time for action is arrived. At the feast of the valley 
we shall stand in competition with the brethren from 
Thebes. All Thebes will be present at the solemn 
service, and it must be proved which knows how to 
serve the Divinity most worthily, they or we. We must 
avail ourselves of all our resources, and Pentaur we 
certainly cannot do without. He must fill the func- 
tion of Cherheb* for to-morrow only; the day after 
he must be brought to judgment. Among the re- 
bellious boys are our best singers, and particularly 
young Anana, who leads the voices of the choir-boys ; 
I will examine the silly fellows at once. Rameri — - 
Rameses’ son — was among the young miscreants ?” 

“ He seems to have been the ring-leader,” answered 
Septah. 

Ameni looked at the old man with a significant 
smile, and said : 

“The royal family are covering themselves with 
honor! His eldest daughter must be kept far from 
the temple and the gathering of the pious, as being 
unclean and refractory, and we shall be obliged to 
expel his son too from our college. You look horrified, 
but I say to you that the time for action is come. 
More of this, this evening. Now, one question : Has 
the news of the death of the ram of Amon reached 
you? Yes? Rameses himself presented him to the 
God, and they gave it his name. A bad omen.” 

' Cherheb was the title of the speaker or reciter at a festival. We cannot 
agree with those whg gonfuse thjs personage wjth (he chief of the Kolchyte§. 


UARDA. 325 

“ And Apis too is dead !” The haruspex threw up 
his arms in lamentation. 

“ His Divine spirit has returned to God,” replied 
Ameni. “ Now we have much to do. Before all 
things we must prove ourselves equal to those in 
Thebes over there, and win the people over to our 
side. The panegyric prepared by us for to-morrow must 
offer some great novelty. The Regent Ani grants us 
a rich contribution, and — ” 

“ And,” interrupted Septah, “ our thaumaturgists 
understand things very differently from those of the 
house of Amon, who feast while we practise.” 

Ameni nodded assent, and said with a smile: “Also 
we are more indispensable than they to the people. 
They show them the path of life, but we smooth the 
way of death. It is easier to find the way without a 
guide in the day-light than in the dark. VVe are more 
than a match for the priests of Amon.” 

“ So long as you are our leader, certainly,” cried the 
haruspex. 

“And so long as the temple has no lack of men of 
your temper! ” added Ameni, half to Septah, and half to 
the second prophet of the temple, sturdy old Gagabu, 
who had come into the room. 

Both accompanied him into the garden, where the 
two priests were awaiting him with the miraculous 
heart. 

Ameni greeted the priest from the temple of Amon 
with dignified friendliness, the head kolchytes with 
distant reserve, listened to their story, looked at the 
heart which lay in the box, with Septah and Gagabu, 
touched it delicately with the tips of his fingers, care- 


326 


VAkhA. 


fully examining the object, which diffused a strong per- 
fume of spices; then he said earnestly: 

“ If this, in your opinion, kolchytes, is not a human 
heart, and if in yours, my brother of the temple of 
Amon, it is a ram’s heart, and if it was found in the 
body of Rui, who is gone to Osiris, we here have a 
mystery which only the Gods can solve. Follow me 
into the great court. Let the gong be sounded, Gagabu, 
four times, for I wish to call all the brethren to- 
gether.” 

The gong rang in loud waves of sound to the 
farthest limits of the group of buildings. The initiated, 
the fathers, the temple-servants, and the scholars streamed 
in, and in a few minutes were all collected. Not a man 
was wanting, for at the four strokes of the rarely-sounded 
alarum every dweller in the House of Seti was expected 
to appear in the court of the temple. Even the leech 
Nebsecht came; for he feared that the unusual sum- 
mons announced the outbreak of a fire. 

Ameni ordered the assembly to arrange itself in a 
procession, informed his astonished hearers that in the 
breast of the deceased prophet Rui, a ram’s heart, in- 
stead of a man’s, had been found, and desired them all 
to follow his instructions. Each one, he said, was to 
fall on his knees and pray, while he would carry the 
heart into the holiest of holies, and enquire of the 
Gods what this wonder might portend to the faithful. 

Ameni, with the heart in his hand, placed himself at 
the head of the procession, and disappeared behind the 
veil of the sanctuary ; the initiated prayed in the vesti- 
bule, in front of it; the priests and scholars in the vast 
court, which was closed on the west by the stately 
colonnade and the main, gateway to the temple. 


UAkDA. 


32? 

For fully an hour Ameni remained in the silent 
holy of holies, from which thick clouds of incense rolled 
out, and then he reappeared with a golden vase set with 
precious stones. His tall figure was now resplendent 
with rich ornaments, and a priest, who walked before 
him, held the vessel high above his head. 

Ameni’s eyes seemed spell-bound to the vase, and 
he followed it, supporting himself by his crozier, with 
humble inflections. 

The initiated bowed their heads till they touched 
the pavement, and the priests and scholars bent their 
faces down to the earth, when they beheld their haughty 
master so filled with humility and devotion. The wor- 
shippers did not raise themselves till Ameni had reached 
the middle of the court and ascended the steps of the 
altar, on which the vase with the heart was now placed, 
and they listened to the slow and solemn accents of 
the high-priest which sounded clearly through the whole 
court. 

“Fall down again and worship! wonder, pray, and 
adore! The noble inspector of sacrifices of the temple 
of Amon has not been deceived in his judgment; a 
ram’s heart was in fact found in the pious breast of 
Rui. I heard distinctly the voice of the Divinity in the 
sanctuary, and strange indeed was the speech that met 
my ear. Wolves tore the sacred ram of Amon in his 
sanctuary on the other bank of the river, but the heart 
of the divine beast found its way into the bosom of the 
saintly Rui. A great miracle has been worked, and 
the Gods have shown a wonderful sign. The spirit of 
the Highest liked not to dwell in the body of this not 
perfectly holy ram, and seeking a purer abiding-place 
found it in the breast of our Rui; and now in this con- 


328 


t^AkDA. 


secrated vase. In this the heart shall be preserved till 
a new ram offered by a worthy hand enters the herd of 
Amon. This heart shall be preserved with the most 
sacred relics, it has the property of healing many 
diseases, and the significant words seem favorable 
which stood written in the midst of the vapor of in- 
cense, and which I will repeat to you word for word, 
‘That which is high shall rise higher, and that which 
exalts itself, shall soon fall down.’ Rise, pastophori! 
hasten to fetch the holy images, bring them out, place 
the sacred heart at the head of the procession, and let 
us march round the walls of the temple with hymns of 
praise. Ye temple-servants, seize your staves, and spread 
in every part of the city the news of the miracle which 
the Divinity has vouchsafed to us.” 

After the procession had marched- round the temple 
and dispersed, the priest of Amon took leave of Ameni; 
he bowed deeply and formally before him, and with a 
coolness that was almost malicious said : 

“We, in the temple of Amon, shall know how to 
appreciate what you heard in the holy of holies. The 
miracle has occurred, and the king shall learn 
how it came -to pass, and in what words it was an- 
nounced.” 

“ In the words of the Most High,” said the high' 
priest with dignity; he bowed to the other, and turned 
to a group of priests, who were discussing the great 
event of the day. 

Ameni enquired of them as to the preparations for 
the festival of the morrow, and then desired the chief 
haruspex to call the refractory pupils together in the 
school-court. The old man informed him that Pentaur 
had returned, and he followed his superior to the 


UARDA. 


329 


released prisoners, who, prepared f jr llie worst, and ex- 
pecting severe punishment, nevertheless shook with 
laughter when Rameri suggested that, it' by chance they 
were condemned to kneel upon peas, they should get 
them cooked first. 

“ It wall be long asparagus* — not peas,” said another 
looking over his shoulder, and pretending to be flogging. 

They all shouted again with laughter, but it w'as hushed 
as soon as they heard Ameni’s well-known footstep. 

Each feared the worst, and when the high-priest 
stood before them even Rameri ’s minh w^as quite 
quelled, for though Ameni looked neither angry nor 
threatening, his appearance commanded respect, and 
each one recognized in him a judge against whose ver- 
dict no remonstrance was to be thought of. 

To their infinite astonishment Ameni spoke kindly 
to the thoughtless boys, praised the motive of their ac- 
tion — their attachment to a highly-endowed teacher 
— but then clearly and deliberately laid before them 
the folly of the means they had employed to attain 
their end, and at what a cost. “ Only think,” he con- 
tinued, turning to the prince, “ if your father sent a 
general, who he thought would be better in a different 
place, from Syria to Kusch, and his troops therefore 
all w'ent over to the enemy ! How would you like 
that ?” 

So for some minutes he continued to blame and 
warn them, and he ended his speech by promising, in 
consideration of the great miracle that gave that day a 
special sanctity, to exercise unwonted clemency. For 
the .sake of example, he said, he could not let them 

• Asparagus was known to the Kgyptians. Pliny says they held in their 
niouths, as a remedy for toothache, w ine in which asparagus had been cooked. 

22 


330 


UARDA. 


pass altogether unpunished, and he now asked them 
which of them had been the instigator of the deed; he 
and he only should suffer punishment. 

He had hardly done speaking, when prince Rameri 
stepped forward, and said modestly: 

“We acknowledge, holy father, that we have played 
a foolish trick; and I lament it doubly because I de- 
vised it, and made the others follow me. I love Pen- 
taur, and next to thee there is no one like him in the 
sanctuary.” 

Ameni’s countenance grew dark, and he answered 
with displeasure: 

“No judgment is allowed to pupils as to their 
teachers — nor to you. If you were not the son of the 
king, who rules Egypt as Ra, I would punish your 
temerity with stripes. My hands are tied with regard 
to you, and yet they must be everywhere and always at 
work if the hundreds committed to my care are to be 
kept from harm.” 

“Nay, punish me!” cried Rameri. “If I commit a 
folly I am ready to bear the consequences.” 

Ameni looked pleased at the vehement boy, and 
would willingly have shaken him by the hand and 
stroked his curly head, but the penance he proposed 
for Rameri was to serve a great end, and Ameni would 
not allow any overflow of emotion to hinder him in the 
execution of a well considered design. So he answered 
the prince with grave determination: 

“I must and will punish you — and I do so by 
requesting you to leave the House of Seti this very 
day.” 

The prince turned pale. But Ameni went on more 
kindly : 


UARDA. 


331 


I do not expel you with ignominy from among us 
— I only bid you a friendly farewell. In a few weeks 
you would in any case have left the college, and by 
the king’s command have transferred your blooming 
life, health, and strength to the exercising ground of tb.e 
chariot-brigade. No punishment for you but this lies 
in my power. Now give me your hand; you will make 
a fine man, and perhaps a great warrior.” 

The prince stood in astonishment before Ameni, 
and did not take his offered hand. Then the priest 
went up to him, and said: 

“You said you were ready to take the consequences 
of your folly, and a prince’s word must be kept. Be- 
fore sunset we wdll conduct you to the gate of the 
temple.” 

Ameni turned his back on the boys, and left the 
school-court. 

Rameri looked after him. Utter whiteness had 
overspread his blooming face, and the blood had left 
even his lips. None of his companions approached 
him, for each felt that what was passing in his soul 
at this moment would brook no careless intrusion. No 
one spoke a word; they all looked at him. 

He soon observed this, and tried to collect himself, 
and then he said in a low tone while he held out his 
hands to Anana and another friend: 

“ Am I then so bad that I must be driven out from 
among you all like this — that such a blow must be in- 
flicted on my father?” 

“You refused Ameni your hand!” answered Anana. 
“ Go to him, offer him your hand, beg him to be less 
severe, and perhaps he will let you remain.” 

Rameri answered only “ No.” But that “ No ” was so 


332 


UARDA. 


decided that all who knew him understood that it was 
final. 

Before the sun set he had left the school. Ameni 
gave him his blessing; he told him that if he himself 
ever had to command he would understand his severity, 
and allowed the other scholars to accompany him as far 
as the Nile. Pentaur parted from him tenderly at the 
gate. 

When Rameri was alone in the cabin of his gilt 
bark with his tutor, he felt his eyes swimming in tears. 

“Your highness is surely not weeping?” asked the 
official. 

“Why?” asked the prince sharply. 

“I thought I saw tears on your highness’ cheeks.” 

“Tears of joy that I am out of the trap,” cried 
Rameri; he sprang on shore, and in a few minutes he 
was with his sister in the palace. 


END OF VOL. I. 


GEORG EBERS 

\}t 


UARDA 



. V 



THE HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF 
GEORG EBERS 


UARDA 

A ROMANCE OF ANCIENT EGYPT 
VOLUME TWO 


Translated from the German by- 
Clara Bell 


POPULAR UNIFORM EDITION 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
New York and London 
\9\S 


Copyright, 1881, 

Bv WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER. 


Authorized Edition. 


Printed in the United States of America 


U A R D A . 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

This eventful day had brought much that was un- 
expected to our friends in Thebes, as well as to those 
who lived in the Necropolis. 

The Lady Katuti had risen early after a sleepless 
night. Nefert had come in late, had excused her delay 
by shortly explaining to her mother that she had been 
detained by Bent-Anat, and had then affectionately 
offered her brow for a kiss of “ good-night.” 

When the widow was about to withdraw to her 
sleeping-room, and Nemu had lighted her lamp, she 
remembered the secret which was to deliver Paaker 
into Ani’s hands. She ordered the dwarf to impart to 
her what he knew, and the little man told her at last, 
after sincere efforts at resistance — for he feared for his 
mother’s safety — that Paaker had administered half of 
a love-philter to Nefert, and that the remainder was still 
in his hands. 

A few hours since this information would have filled 
Katuti with indignation and disgust ; now, though she 
blamed the Mohar, she asked eagerly whether such a 
drink could be proved to have any actual effect. 

“ Not a doubt of it,” said the dwarf, ‘‘ if the whole 
were taken, but Nefert only had half of it.” 

At a late hour Katuti was still pacing her bedroom, 


UARDA. 


thinking of Paakcr’s insane devotion, of Mena’s faithless- 
ness, and of Nefert’s altered demeanor; and when she went 
to bed, a thousand conjectures, fears, and anxieties tor- 
mented her, while she was distressed at the change which 
had come over Nefert’s love to her mother, a sentiment 
which of all others should be the most sacred, and the 
most secure against all shock. 

Soon after sunrise she went into the little temple at- 
tached to the house, and made an offering to the statue, 
which, under the form of Osiris, represented her lost hus- 
band ; then she went to the temple of Amon, where she 
also prayed a while, and nevertheless, on her return home, 
found that her daughter had not yet made her appearance 
in the hall where they usually breakfasted together. 

Katuti preferred to be undisturbed during the early 
morning hours, and therefore did not interfere with her 
daughter’s disposition to sleep far into the day in her care- 
fully-darkened room. 

When the widow went to the temple Nefert was ac- 
customed to take a cup of milk in bed, then she would 
let herself be dressed, and when her mother returned, 
she would find her in the veranda or hall, which is so 
well known to the reader. 

To-day however Katuti had to breakfast alone ; but 
when she had eaten a few mouthfuls she prepared Nefert’s 
breakfast — a white cake and a little wine in a small silver 
beaker, carefully guarded from dust and insects by a nap- 
kin thrown over it— and went into her daughter’s room. 

She was startled at finding it empty, but she was in- 
formed that Nefert had gone earlier than was her wont 
to the temple, in her litter. 

With a heavy sigh she returned to the veranda, and 
there received her nephew Paaker, who had come to 


UARDA. 


3 


enquire after the health of his relatives, followed by a 
slave, who carried two magnificent bunches of flowers,* 
and by the great dog which had formerly belonged to 
his father. One bouquet he said had been cut for 
Nefert, and the other for her mother. 

Katuti had taken quite a new interest in Paaker 
since she had heard of his procuring the philter. 

No other young man of the rank to which they 
belonged, would have allowed himself to be so mastered 
by his passion for a woman as this Paaker was, who 
went straight to his aim with stubborn determination, 
and shunned no means that might lead to it. The 
pioneer, who had grown up under her eyes, whose 
weaknesses she knew, and whom she was accustomed 
to look down upon, suddenly appeared to her as a dif- 
ferent man — almost a stranger — as the deliverer of his 
friends, and the merciless antagonist of his enemies. 

These reflections had passed rapidly through her 
mind. Now her eyes rested on the sturdy, strongly- 
knit figure of her nephew, and it struck her that he 
bore no resemblance to his tall, handsome father. Often 
had she admired her brother-in-law’s slender hand, that 
nevertheless could so effectually wield a sword, but that 
of his son was broad and ignoble in form. 

While Paaker was telling her that he must shortly 
leave for Syria, she involuntarily observed the action of 
this hand, which often went cautiously to his girdle as 
if he had something concealed there ; this was the oval 
phial with the rest of the philter. Katuti observed it, 
and her cheeks flushed when it occurred to her to guess 
what he had there. 

* Pictures on the monuments show that in ancient Egypt, as at the present 
time, bouquets of flowers were bestowed as tokens of friendly feeling. 


4 


UARPA. 


The pioneer could not but observe Katuti’s agita- 
tion, and he said in a tone of sympathy : 

“I perceive that you are in pain, or in trouble. 
The master of Mena’s stud at Hermonthis has no doubt 
been with you — No? He came to me yesterday, and 
asked me to allow him to join my troops. He is very 
.'uigry with you, because he has been obliged to sell 
some of Mena’s gold-bays. I have bought the finest of 
them. They are splendid creatures! Now he wants 
to go to his master ‘to open his eyes,’ as he says. Lie 
down a little while, aunt, you are very pale.” 

Katuti did not follow this prescription; on the con- 
trary she smiled, and said in a voice half of anger and 
half of pity: 

“The old fool firmly believes that the weal or woe 
of the family depends on the gold-bays. He would 
like to go with you? To open Mena’s eyes? No one 
has yet tried to bind them!” 

Katuti spoke the last words in a low tone, and 
her glance fell. Paaker also looked down, and was 
silent; but he soon recovered his presence of mind, 
and said: 

“If Nefert is to be long absent, I Avill go.” 

“No — no, stay,” cried the widow. “She wished to 
see you, and must soon come in. There are her cake 
and her wine waiting for her.” 

With these words she took the napkin off the 
breakfast-table, held up the beaker in her hand, and 
then said, with the cloth still in her hand: 

“I will leave you a moment, and see if Nefert is 
not yet come home.” 

Hardly had she left the veranda when Paaker, 
having convinced himself that no one could see him. 


UARDA. 


5 


snatched the flask from his girdle, and, with a short 
invocation to his father in Osiris, poured its whole con- 
tents into the beaker, which thus was filled to the very 
brim. A few minutes later Nefert and her mother 
entered the hall. 

Paaker took up the nosegay, which his slave had 
laid down on a seat, and timidly approached the young 
woman, who walked in with such an aspect of decision 
and self-confidence, that her mother looked at her in 
astonishment, w'hile Paaker felt as if she had never 
before appeared so beautiful and brilliant. Was it 
possible that she should love her husband, when his 
breach of faith troubled her so little ? Did her heart 
still belong to another? Or had the love-philter 
set him in the place of Mena? Yes! yes! for how 
warmly she greeted him. She put out her hand to 
him while he was still quite far off, let it rest in his, 
thanked him with feeling, and praised his fidelity and 
generosity. 

Then she went up to the table, begged Paaker to 
sit down with her, broke her cake, and enquired for her 
aunt Setchem, Paaker’s mother. 

Katuti and Paaker watched all her movements with 
beating hearts. 

Now she took up the beaker, and lifted it to her 
lips, but set it down again to answer Paaker’s remark 
that she was breakfasting late. 

“ I have hitherto been a real lazy-bones,” she said 
with a blush. “ But this morning I got up early, to go 
and pray in the temple in the fresh dawn. You know 
what has happened to the sacred ram of Amon. It is 
a frightful occurrence. The priests were all in the 
greatest agitation, but the venerable Bek el Chunsu 


6 


UARDA. 


received me himself, and interpreted my dream, and 
now my spirit is light and contented.” 

“ And you did all this without me ?” said Katuti in 
gentle reproof. 

“ I would not disturb you,” replied Nefert. 

“ Besides,” she added coloring, “ you never take 
me to the city and the temple in the morning.” 

Again she took up the wine-cup and looked into it, 
but without drinking any, went on : 

“ Would you like to hear what I dreamed, Paaker ? 
It was a strange vision.” 

The pioneer could hardly breathe for expectation, 
still he begged her to tell her dream. 

Only think,” said Nefert, pushing the beaker on 
the smooth table, which was wet with a few drops 
which she had spilt, “ I dreamed of the Neha-tree,* 
down there in the great tub, which your father brought 
me from Punt, when I was a little child, and which 
since then has grown quite a tall tree. There is no 
tree in the garden I love so much, for it always re- 
minds me of your father, who was so kind to me, and 
whom I can never forget !” 

Paaker bowed assent. 

Nefert looked at him, and interrupted her story 
when she observed his crimson cheeks. 

“ It is very hot ! Would you like some wine to drink 
— or some water ?” 

With these words she raised the wine-cup, and 
drank about half of the contents ; then she shuddered, 
and while her pretty face took a comical expression, 


* The Neha-tree yielded the resinous berries cdled Anta, which were 
highly valued for incense. It is probably Balsamodendron Myrrhoea, and allied 
to the tree which produces the balm of Gilead. 


UARDA. 7 

she turned to her mother, who was seated behind her 
and held the beaker towards her. 

“ The wine is quite sour to-day !” she said. ‘‘ Taste 
it, mother.” 

Katuti took the little silver-cup in her hand, and 
gravely put it to her lips, but without wetting them. 
A smile passed over her face, and her eyes met those 
of the pioneer, who stared at her in horror. The 
picture flashed before her mind of herself languishing 
for the pioneer, and of his terror at her affection 
for him! Her selfish and intriguing spirit was free 
from coarseness, and yqt she could have laughed with 
all her heart even while engaged in the most shameful 
deed of her whole life. She gave the wine back to 
her daughter, saying good-humoredly — 

“ I have tasted sweeter, but acid is refreshing in this 
heat.” 

“ That is true,” said the wife of Mena ; she emptied 
the cup to the bottom, and then went on, as if refreshed : 

“ But I will tell you the rest of my dream. I saw 
the Neha-tree, which your father gave me, quite plainly ; 
nay 1 could have declared that I smelt its perfume, but 
the interpreter assured me that we never smell in our 
dreams. I went up to the beautiful tree in admiration. 
Then suddenly a hundred axes appeared in the air, 
wielded by unseen hands, and struck the poor tree 
with such violence that the branches one by one fell 
to the ground, and at last the trunk itself was felled. 
If you think it grieved me you are mistaken. On the 
contrary, I was delighted with the flashing hatchets 
and the flying splinters. When at last nothing was left 
but the roots in the tub of earth, I perceived that the 
tree was rising to new life. Suddenly my arms be 


8 


UARDA. 


came strong, my feet active, and I fetched quantities 
of water from the tank, poured it over the roots, and 
when, at last, I could exert myself no longer, a tender 
green shoot showed itself on the wounded root, a bud 
appeared, a green leaf unfolded itself, a juicy stem 
sprouted quickly, it became a firm trunk, sent out 
branches and twigs, and these became covered with 
leaves and flowers, white, red and blue ; then various 
birds came and settled on the top of the tree, and 
sang. Ah ! my heart sang louder than the birds at 
that moment, and I said to myself that without me the 
tree would have been dead, and that it owed its life 
to me.” 

“A beautiful dream,” said Katuti; “that reminds 
me of your girlhood, when you would lie awake half 
the night inventing all sorts of tales. What interpreta- 
tion did the priest give you ?” 

“ He promised me many things,” said Nefert, “ and 
he gave me the assurance that the happiness to which 
I am predestined shall revive in fresh beauty after 
many interruptions.” 

“And Paaker’s father gave you the Neha-tree?” 
asked Katuti, leaving the veranda as she spoke and 
walking out into the garden. 

“ My father brought it to Thebes from the far 
east,” said Paaker, in confirmation of the widow’s part- 
ing words. 

“ And that is exactly what makes me so happy,” 
said Nefert. “ For yoiir father was as kind, and as 
dear to me as if he had been my own. Do you 
remember when we were sailing round the pond, and 
the boat upset, and you pulled me senseless out of 
the water? Never shall I forget the expression with 


UARDA. 


9 


which the great man looked at me when I woke up in 
his arms; such wise true eyes no one ever had but he.” 

“ He was good, and he loved you very much,” said 
Paaker, recalling, for his part, the moment when he 
had dared to press a kiss on the lips of the sweet 
unconscious child. 

“And I am so glad,” Nefert went on, “that the 
day has come at last when we can talk of him together 
again, and when the old grudge that lay so heavy 
on my heart is all forgotten. How good you are to 
us, I have already learned; my heart overflows with 
gratitude to you, when I remember my childhood, and I 
can never forget that I was indebted to you for all 
that was bright and happy in it. Only look at the 
big dog — poor Descher ! — how he ruHs against me, and 
shows that he has not forgotten me! Whatever comes 
from your house fills my mind with pleasant mem- 
ories.” 

“We all love you dearly,” said Paaker looking at 
her tenderly. 

“And how sweet it was in your garden!” cried 
Nefert. “The nosegay here that you have brought me 
shall be placed in water, and preserved a long time, as 
a greeting from the place in which once I could play 
so carelessly, and dream so happily.” 

With these words she pressed the flowers to her 
lips; Paaker sprang forward, seized her hand, and 
covered it with burning kisses. 

Nefert started and drew away her hand, but he 
put out his arm to clasp her to him. He had touched 
her with his trembling hand, when loud voices were 
heard in the garden, and Nemu hurried in to announce 

the arrival of the princess Bent-Anat. 

23 


i6 


trAi?t)A. 


At the same moment Katuti appeared, and in a 
few minutes the princess herself. 

Paaker retreated, and quitted the room before 
Nefert had time to express her indignation. He stag 
gered to his chariot like a drunken man. He supposed 
himself beloved by Mena’s wife, his heart was full 
of triumph, he proposed rewarding Hekt with gold, 
and went to the palace without delay to crave of Ani 
a mission to Syria. There it should be brought to the 
test— he or Mena. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

While Nefert, frozen with horror, could not find a 
word of greeting for her royal friend, Bent-Anat with 
native dignity laid before the widow her choice of 
Nefert to fill the place of her lost companion, and desired 
that Mena’s wife should go to the palace that very day. 

She had never before spoken thus to Katuti, and 
Katuti could not overlook the fact that Bent-Anat had 
intentionally given up her old confidential tone. 

“Nefert has complained of me to her,” thought 
she to herself, “ and she considers me no longer worthy 
of her former friendly kindness.” 

She was vexed and hurt, and though she under^ 
stood the danger which threatened her, now her daugh- 
ter’s eyes were opened, still the thought of losing her 
child inflicted a painful wound. It was this which 
filled her eyes with tears, and sincere sorrow trembled 
in her voice as she replied : 

“Thou hast required the better half of my life at 
my hand; but thou hast but to command, and I to obey.” 

Bent-Anat waved her hand proudly, as if to confirm 


UARDA. 


II 


the widow’s statement; but Nefert went up to her 
mother, threw her arms round her neck, and wept 
upon her shoulder. 

Tears glistened even in the princess’s eyes when 
Katuti at last led her daughter towards her, and 
pressed yet one more kiss on her forehead. 

Bent-Anat look Nefert’s hand, and did not release 
it, while she requested the widow to give her daugh- 
ter’s dresses and ornaments into the charge of the 
slaves and waiting-women whom she would send for them. 

“And do not forget the case with the dried 
flowers, and my amulets, and the images of the Gods,” 
said Nefert. “And I should like to have the Neha- 
tree which my uncle gave me.” 

Her white cat was playing at her feet with Paaker’s 
flowers, which she had dropped on the floor, and when 
she saw her she took her up and kissed her. 

“ Bring the little creature with you,” said Bent-Anat. 
“It was your favorite plaything.” 

“No,” replied Nefert coloring. 

The princess understood her, pressed her hand, 
and said while she pointed to Nemu: 

“The dwarf is your own too: shall he come with 
you ? ” 

“ I will give him to my mother,” said Nefert. She 
let the little man kiss her robe and her feet, once 
more embraced Katuti, and quitted the garden with 
her royal friend. 

As soon as Katuti was alone, she hastened into the 
little chapel in which the figures of her ancestors 
stood, apart from those of Mena. She threw herself 
down before the statue of her husband, half weeping, 
half thankful. 


12 


UARDA. 


This parting had indeed fallen heavily on her soul, 
but at the same time it released her from a moun- 
tain of anxiety that had oppressed her breast. Since 
yesterday she had felt like one who walks along the 
edge of a precii)ice, and whose enemy is close at his 
heels; and the sense of freedom from the ever threaten- 
ing danger, soon got the upperhand of her maternal 
grief. The abyss in front of her had suddenly closed; 
the road to the goal of her efforts lay before her 
smooth and firm beneath her feet. 

The widow, usually so dignified, hastily and eagerly 
walked down the garden path, and for the first time 
since that luckless letter from the camp had reached 
her, she could look calmly and clearly at the position 
of affairs, and reflect on the measures which Ani must 
take in the immediate future. She told herself that all 
was well, and that the time for prompt and rapid ac- 
tion was now come. 

When the messengers came from the princess she 
superintended the packing of the various objects which 
Nefert wished to have, with calm deliberation, and 
then sent her dwarf to Ani, to beg that he would visit 
her. But before Nemu had left Mena’s grounds he 
saw the out-runners of the Regent, his chariot, and the 
troop of guards following him. 

Very soon Katuti and her noble friend were walk- 
ing up and down in the garden, while she related to 
him how Bent-Anat had taken Nefert from her, and 
repeated to him all that she had planned and con- 
sidered during the last hour. 

“You have the genius of a man,” said Ani; “and this 
time you do not urge me in vain. Ameni is ready to 
act, Paaker is to-day collecting his troops, to-morrow 


UARDA. 


13 


he will assist at the feast of the Valley, and the next 
day he goes to Syria.” 

“ He has been with you ?” Katuti asked. 

“ He came to the palace on leaving your house,” 
replied Ani, “with glowing cheeks, and resolved to 
(he utmost; though he does not dream that I hold 
< im in my hand.” 

Thus speaking they entered the veranda, in which 
Nemu had remained, and he now hid himself as usual 
behind the ornamental shrubs to overhear them. They 
sat down near each other, by Nefert’s breakfast table, 
and Ani asked Katuti whether the dwarf had told her 
his mother’s secret. Katuti feigned ignorance, listened 
to the story of the love-philter, and played the part of 
the alarmed mother very cleverly. The Regent was of 
opinion, while he tried to soothe her, that there was 
no real love-potion in the case; but the widow ex- 
claimed : 

“Now I understand, now for the first time I com- 
prehend my daughter. Paaker must have poured the 
drink into her wine, for she had no sooner drunk it 
this morning than she was quite altered — her words to 
Paaker had quite a tender ring in them; and if he 
placed himself so cheerfully at your disposal it is be- 
cause he believes himself certainly to be beloved by 
my daughter. The old witch’s potion was effectual.” 

“ There certainly are such drinks — ” said Ani 
thoughtfully. “ But will they only win hearts to young 
men ! If that is the case, the old woman’s trade is a 
bad one, for youth is in itself a charm to attract love. 
If I were only as young as Paaker! You laugh at the 
sighs of a man — say at once of an old man ! Well, yes, 
I old, for the prime of life lies behind me. And 


*4 


UARDA. 


yet Katuti, my friend, wisest of women — explain to 
me one thing. When I was young I was loved by 
many and admired many women, but not one of them 
— not even my wife, who died young, was more to me 
than a toy, a plaything ; and now when I stretch out 
my hand for a girl, whose father I might very well be 
— not for her own sake, but simply to serve my pur- 
pose — and she refuses me, I feel as much disturbed, as 
much a fool as — as that dealer in love-philters, Paaker.” 

“ Have you spoken to Bent-Anat?” a'sked Katuti. 

“And heard again from her own lips the refusal 
she had sent me through you. You see my spirit has 
suffered !” 

“ And on what pretext did she reject your suit ?” 
asked the widow. 

“ Pretext !” cried An i. “ Bent-Anat and pretext! It 
must be owned that she has kingly pride, and not Ma* 
herself is more truthful than she. That I should have 
to confess it ! When I think of her, our plots seem to 
me unutterably pitiful. My veins contain, indeed, many 
drops of the blood of Thotmes, and though the ex- 
perience of life has taught me to stoop low, still the 
•looping hurts me. I have never known the happy 
feeling of satisfaction with my lot and my work ; for I 
have always had a greater position than I could fill, 
and constantly done less than I ought to have done. In 
order not to look always resentful, I always wear a 
smile. I have nothing left of the face I was born with 
but the mere skin, and always wear a mask. I serve 
him whose master I believe I ought to be by birth ; I 
hate Rameses, who, sincerely or no, calls me his 
brother; and while I stand as if I were the bulwark of 
* The Goddess of Truth- 


UARDA. 15 

his authority I am diligently undermining it. My whole 
existence is a lie.” 

“ But it will be truth,” cried Katuti, “ as soon as 
the Gods allow you to be — as you are — the real king 
of this country.” 

“Strange!” said Ani smiling, “Ameni, this very 
day, used almost exactly the same words. The wis- 
dom '-'f priests, and that of women, have much in com- 
mon, and they fight with the same weapons. You 
use words instead of swords, traps instead of lances, 
and you cast not our bodies, but our souls, into irons.” 

“ Do you blame or praise us for it ?” said the 
widow. “ We are in any case not impotent allies, and 
therefore, it seems to me, desirable ones.” 

“ Indeed you are,” said Ani smiling. “Not a tear 
is shed in the land, whether it is shed for joy or for 
sorrow, for which in the first instance a priest or a wo- 
man is not responsible. Seriously, Katuti — in nine 
great events out of ten you women have a hand in the 
game. You gave the first impulse to all that is plot- 
ting here, and I will confess to you that, regardless of 
all consequences, I should in a few hours have given 
up my pretensions to the throne, if that woman Bent- 
Anat had said ‘ yes ’ instead of ‘ no.’ ” 

“You make me believe,” said Katuti, “that the 
weaker sex are gifted with stronger wills than the 
nobler. In marrying us you style us, ‘ the mistress of 
the house,’ and if the elders of the citizens grow in- 
firm, in this country it is not the sons but the daughters 
that must be their mainstay. But we women have our 
weaknesses, and chief of these is curiosity. — May I ask 
on what ground Bent-Anat dismissed you ?” 

“You know so much that you may know all,” 


UARDA. 


iC 

replied Ani. She admitted me to speak to her alone. 
It was yet early, and she had come from the temple, 
where the weak old prophet had absolved her from 
uncleanness ; she met me, bright, beautiful and proud, 
strong and radiant as a Goddess, and a princess. My 
heart throbbed as if I were a boy, and while she was 
showing me her flowers I said to myself: ‘You are 
come to obtain through her another claim to the 
throne.’ And yet I felt that, if she consented to be 
mine, I would remain the true brother, the faithful 
Regent of Rameses, and enjoy happiness and peace 
by her side before it was too late. If she refused me 
then I resolved that fate must take its way, and, in- 
stead of peace and love, it must be war for the crown 
snatched from my fathers. I tried to woo her, but she 
cut my words short, said I was a noble man, and a 
worthy suitor but — ” 

“There came the but.” 

“Yes — in the form of a very frank ‘no.’ I asked 
her reasons. She begged me to be content with the 
‘ no then I pressed her harder, till she interrupted me, 
and owned with proud decision that she preferred 
some one else. I wished to learn the name of the 
happy man — that she refused. Then my blood began 
to boil, and my desire to win her increased ; but I had 
to leave her, rejected, and with a fresh, burning, poi- 
soned wound in my heart.” 

“ You are jealous !” said Ratuti, “ and do you know 
of whom ?” 

“ No,” replied Ani. “ But I hope to find out through 
you. What I feel it is impossible for me to express. 
But one thing I know, and that is this, that I entered 
the palace a vacillating man — that I left it firmly re- 


UARDA. 


^7 


solved. I now rush straight onwards, never again to 
turn back. From this time forward you will no longer 
have to drive me onward, but rather to hold me back ; 
and, as if the Gods had meant to show that they 
would stand by me, I found the high-priest Ameni, 
and the chief pioneer Paaker waiting for me in my 
house. Ameni will act for me in Egypt, Paaker in 
Syria. My victorious troops from Ethiopia will enter 
I'hebes to-morrow morning, on their return home in 
triumph, as if the king were at their head, and will 
then take part in the Feast of the Valley. Later we 
will send them into the north, and post them in the for- 
tresses which protect Egypt* against enemies coming from 
the east — Tanis, Daphne, Pelusium, Migdol. Rameses, 
as you know, requires that we should drill the serfs of 
the temples, and send them to him as auxiliaries. 1 
will send him half of the body-guard, the other half 
shall serve my own purposes. The garrison of Memphis, 
which is devoted to Rameses, shall be sent to Nubia, 
and shall be relieved by troops that are faithful to me. 
The people of Thebes are led by tlie priests, and to- 
morrow Ameni will point out to them who is their 
legitimate king, who will put an end to the war and 
release them from taxes., d'he children of Rameses 
will be excluded from the solemnities, for Ameni, in \ 
spite of the chief-priest of Amon, still pronounces Bent- 
Anat unclean. Young Rameri has been doing wrong 
and Ameni, who has some other great scheme in his 
mind, has forbidden him the temple of Seti; that will 
work on the crowd! You know how things are going 

I have treated of the line of fortresses which protected E^pt from the 
incursions of the Asiatic tribes on the east in “ Egypten und die Bucher Mose. ’ 
Vol. II. p. 78. 


1 8 uarda. 

on in Syria ; Rameses has suffered much at the hands 
of the Cheta and their allies ; whole legions are weary 
of eternally lying in the field, and if things came to 
extremities would join us; but, perhaps, especially if 
Paaker acquits himself well, we may be victorious 
without fighting. Above all things now we must act 
rapidly.” 

“ I no longer recognize the timid, cautious lover of 
delay!” exclaimed Katuti. 

“ Because now prudent hesitation would be want of 
prudence,” said Ani. 

“ And if the king should get timely information as 
to what is happening here ?” said Katuti. 

“ I said so !” exclaimed Ani ; “ we are exchanging 
parts.” 

“You are mistaken,” said Katuti. “ I also am for 
pressing forwards ; but I would remind you of a neces- 
sary precaution. No letters but yours must reach the 
camp for the next few weeks.” 

“ Once more you and the priests are of one mind,"' 
said Ani laughing ; “ for Ameni gave me the same 
counsel. Whatever letters are sent across the frontiei 
between Pelusium and the Red Sea will be detained. 
Only my letters — in which I complain of the piratical 
sons of the desert who fall upon the messengers — will 
reach the king.” 

“ That is wise,” said the widow ; “ let the seaports 
of the Red Sea be watched too, and the public writers. 
When you are king, you can distinguish those who are 
affected for or against you.” 

Ani shook his head and replied — 

“ That would put me in a difficult position ; for it 
I were to punish those who are now faithful to their 


UARDA. 


19 


king, and exalt the others, I should have to govern 
with unfaithful servants, and turn away the faithful 
ones. You need not color, my kind friend, for we 
are kin, and my concerns are yours.” 

Katuti took the hand he offered her and said : 

“It is so. And I ask no further reward than to 
see my father’s house once more in the enjoyment of 
its rights.” 

“ Perhaps we shall achieve it,” said Ani ; “ but in a 

short time if — if Reflect, Katuti ; try to find out, ask 

your daughter to help you to the utmost. Who is it 
that she — you know whom T mean — Who is it that 
Bent-Anat loves ?” 

The widow started, for Ani had spoken the last 
words with a vehemence very foreign to his usual 
courtliness, but soon she smiled and repeated to the 
Regent the names of the few young nobles who had 
not followed the king, and remained in Thebes. “ Can 
it be Chamus ?” at last she said, “ he is at the camp, 
it is true, but nevertheless — ” 

At this instant Nemu, who had not lost a word 
of the conversation, came in as if straight from the 
garden and said : 

“ Pardon me, my lady ; but I have heard a strange 
thing.” 

“ Speak,” said Katuti. 

“The high and mighty princess Bent-Anat, the 
daughter of Rameses, is said to have an open love- 
affair with a young priest of the House of Seti.” 

“ You barefaced scoundrel!” exclaimed Ani, and his 
eyes sparkled with rage. “ Prove what you say, or you 
lose your tongue.” 

“ I am willing to lose it as a slanderer and traitor 


20 


UAKDA. 


according to the law,” said the little man abjectly, and 
yet with a malicious laugh ; “ but this time I shall keep 
it, for I can vouch for what I say. You both know 
that Bent-Anat was pronounced unclean because she 
stayed for an hour^nd more in the house of a paraschites. 
She had an assignation there with the priest. At a 
second, in the temple of Hatasu, they were surprised 
by Septah, the chief of the haruspices of the House of 
Seti.” 

“Who is the priest?” asked Ani with apparent 
calmness. 

“ A low-born man,” replied Nemu, “ to whom a free 
education was given at the House of Seti, and who is 
well known as a verse-maker and interpreter of dreams. 
His name is Pentaur, and it certainly must be ad- 
mitted that he is handsome and dignified. He is line 
for line the image of the pioneer Paaker’s late father 
— Didst thou ever see him, my lord ?” 

The Regent looked gloomily at the floor and nodded 
that he had. But Katuti cried out; “ Fool that I am! 
the dwarf is right ! 1 saw how she blushed when her 

brother told her how the boys had rebelled on his 
account against Ameni. It is Pentaur and none 
other 1” 

“ Good!” said Ani, “ we will see.” 

With these words he took leave of Katuti, who, as 
he disappeared in the garden, muttered to herself — 

“ He was wonderfully clear and decided to-day ; 
but jealousy is already blinding him and will soon 
make him feel that he cannot get on without my sharp 
eyes.” 

Nemu had slipped out after the Regent. 


UARDA. 


21 


He called to him from behind a fig-tree, and hastily 
whispered, while he bowed with deep respect: 

“ My mother knows a great deal, most noble high- 
ness! The sacred Ibis* wades through the fen when 
it goes in search of prey, and why shouldst thou not 
stoop to pick up gold out of the dust? I know how 
thou couldst speak with the old woman without being 
seen.” 

“Speak,” said Ani. 

“Throw her into prison for a day, hear what she 
has to say, and then release her — with gifts if she 
is of service to you — if not, with blows. But thou wilt 
learn something important from her that she obstinately 
refused to tell me even.” 

“We will see!” replied the Regent. He threw a 
ring of gold to the dwarf and got into his chariot. 

So large a crowd had collected in the vicinity of 
the palace, that Ani apprehended mischief, and ordered 
his charioteer to check the pace of the horses, and sent 
a few police-soldiers to the support of the out-runners; 
but good news seemed to await him, for at the gate of 
the castle he heard the unmistakable acclamations of 
the crowd, and in the palace court he found a mes- 
senger from the temple of Seti, commissioned by Amei .i 
to communicate to him and to the people, the occur- 
rence of a great miracle, in that the heart of the ram 
of Amon, that had been torn by wolves, had been 
found again within the breast of the dead prophet 
Rui. 

* Ibis religiosa. It has disappeared from Egypt. There were two varieties 
of this bird, which was sacred to Toth, and mummies of both have been found 
in various places. Elian states that an immortal Ibis was shown at Hermopolis. 
Plutarch says, the Ibis destroys poisonous reptiles, and that priests draw the 
water for Aeir purifications where the Ibis has drunk, as it will never touch 
unwholesome water, 


22 


UARDA. 


Ani at once descended from his chariot, knelt down 
before all the people, who followed his example, lifted 
his arms to heaven, and praised the Gods in a loud 
voice. When, after some minutes, he rose and entered 
the palace, slaves came out and distributed bread to 
the crowd in Ameni’s name. 

“ The Regent has an open hand,” said a joiner to 
his neighbor; “only look how white the bread is. I 
w'ill put it in my pocket and take it to the chil- 
dren.” 

“ Give me a bit !” cried a naked little scamp, snatch- 
ing the cake of bread from the joiner’s hand and 
running away, slipping between the legs of the people 
as lithe as a snake. 

“You crocodile’s brat!” cried his victim. “ The 
insolence of boys gets worse and worse every day.” 

“ They are hungry,” said the woman apologetically. 
“ Their fathers are gone to the war, and the mothers 
have nothing for their children but papyrus-pith and 
lotus-seeds.” 

“ I hope they enjoy it,” laughed the joiner. “ Let 
us push to the left ; there is a man with some more 
bread.” 

“The Regent must rejoice greatly over the miracle,” 
said a shoemaker. “ It is costing him something.” 

“Nothing like it has happened for a long time,” 
said a basket-maker. “ And he is particularly glad it 
should be precisely Rui’s body, which the sacred heart 
should have blessed. You ask why ? — Hatasu is Ani’s 
ancestress, blockhead 1” 

“And Rui was prophet of the temple of Hatasu,” 
added the joiner. 


UARDA. 


23 


“ The priests over there are all hangers-on of the 
old royal house, that I know,” asserted a baker. 

“ That’s no secret !” cried the cobbler. “ The old 
times were better than these too. The war upsets 
everything, and quite respectable people go barefoot be- 
cause they cannot pay for shoe-leather. Rameses is a 
great warrior, and the son of Ra, but what can he do 
without the Gods ; and they don’t seem to like to stay 
in Thebes any longer ; else why should the heart of the 
sacred ram seek a new dwelling in the Necropolis, and 
in the breast of an adherent of the old — ” 

‘‘ Hold your tongue,” warned the basket-maker. 
‘‘ Here comes one of the watch.” 

“ I must go back to work,” said the baker. “ I have 
my hands quite full for the feast to-morrow.” 

“ And I too,” said the shoemaker with a sigh, “ for 
who would follow the king of the Gods through the 
Necropolis barefoot.” 

“ You must earn a good deal,” cried the basket-maker. 

“ We should do better if we had better workmen,” 
replied the shoemaker, “ but all the good hands are gone 
to the war. One has to put up with stupid youngsters. 
And as for the women ! My wife must needs have a 
new gown for the procession, and bought necklets for 
the children. Of course we must honor the dead, and 
they repay it often by standing by us when we want it — 
but what I pay for sacrifices no one can tell. More than 
half of what I earn goes in them — ” 

“ In the first grief of losing my poor wife,” said the 
baker, “ I promised a small offering every new moon, 
and a greater one every year. The priests will not 
release us from our vows, and times get harder and 
harder. And my dead wife owes me a grudge, and is 


UARDA. 


24 

as thankless as she was in her lifetime > for when she 
appears to me in a dream she does not give me a good 
word, and often torments me.” 

“ She is now a glorified all-seeing spirit,” said the 
basket-maker’s wife, “ and no doubt you were faithless 
to her. The glorified souls know all that happens, and 
that has happened on earth.” 

The baker cleared his throat, having no answer 
ready ; but the shoemaker exclaimed : 

“ By Anubis, the lord of the under-world, I hope I 
may die before my old woman ! for if she finds out 
down there all I have done in this world, and if she may 
be changed into any shape she pleases, she will come to 
me every night, and nip me like a crab, and sit on me 
like a mountain.” 

“And if you die first,” said the woman, “she will fol- 
low you afterwards to the under- world, and see through 
you there.” 

“ That will be less dangerous,” said the shoemaker 
laughing, “ for then I shall be glorified too, and shall 
know all about her past life. That will not all be white 
paper either, and if she throws a shoe at me I will fling 
the last at her.” 

“ Come home,” said the basket-maker’s wife, pulling 
her husband away. “ You are getting no good by hear- 
ing this talk.” 

The bystanders laughed, and the baker exclaimed : 

“ It is high time I should be in the Necropolis before 
it gets dark, and see to the tables being laid for to-mor- 
row’s festival. My trucks are close to the narrow entrance 
to the valley. Send your little ones to me, and I will give 
them something nice. Are you coming over with me?” 

“ My younger brother is gone over with the goods,” 


UARDA. 


2 $ 


replied the shoemaker. “ We have plenty to do still for 
the customers in Thebes, and here am I standing 
gossiping. Will the wonderful heart of the sacred ram 
be exhibited to-morrow do you know ?” 

“Of course — no doubt,” said the baker, “good-bye, 
there go my cases !” 


CHAPTER XXVr. 

Notwithstanding the advanced hour, hundreds of 
people were crossing over to the Necropolis at the same 
time as the baker. They were permitted to linger late 
on into the evening, under the inspection of the watch, 
because it was the eve of the great feast, and they had to 
set out their counters and awnings, to pitch their tents, 
and to spread out their wares ; for as soon as the sun 
rose next day all business traffic would be stopped, none 
but festal barges might cross from Thebes, or such boats 
as ferried over pilgrims — men, women, and children, 
whether natives or foreigners, who were to take part in 
the great procession. 

In the halls and work-rooms of the House of Seti 
there was unusual stir. The great miracle of the wonder- 
ful heart had left but a short time for the preparations 
for the festival. Here a chorus was being practised, 
there on the sacred lake* a scenic representation was 
being rehearsed ; here the statues of the Gods were be- 
ing cleaned and dressed,** and the colors of the sacred 

* Every temple had its sacred lake or tank, and Herodotus speaks of the 
representation he saw at night on the sacred lake of Neith at Sais. “They call 
them mysteries,” he says, “and though I know much about them I will be si- 
lent out of reverence.” The myths of isis, Osiris, and Seth-Typhon were repre- 
sented. 

”* The Stolistes had the duty of dressing the figures of the Gods, and on 
some of the reliefs there are still little hooks on which the drapery was hung. 

24 


26 


UARDA. 


emblems were being revived, there the panther-skins 
and other parts of the ceremonial vestments of the priests 
were being aired and set out ; here sceptres, censers and 
other metal-vessels were being cleaned, and there the 
sacred bark* which was to be carried in the procession 
was being decorated. In the sacred groves of the tem- 
ple the school-boys, under the direction of the gardeners, 
wove garlands and wreaths to decorate the landing- 
places, the sphinxes, the temple, and the statues of the 
Gods. Flags were hoisted on the brass-tipped masts in 
front of the pylon, and purple sails were spread to give 
shadow to the court. 

The inspector of sacrifices was already receiving at 
a side-door the cattle, corn and fruit, offerings which 
were brought as tribute to the House of Seti, by citi- 
zens from all parts of the country, on the occasion of 
the festival of the Valley, and he was assisted by scribes, 
who kept an account of all that was brought in by the 
able-bodied temple-servants and laboring serfs. 

Ameni was everywhere : now with the singers, now 
with the magicians, who were to effect wonderful trans- 
formations before the astonished multitude ; now with 
the workmen, who were erecting thrones for the Regent, 
the emissaries from other collegiate foundations** — even 
from so far as the Delta — and the prophets from Thebes ; 
now with the priests, who were preparing the incense. 


The dressing and undressing of the holy images was conducted in strict accord- 
ance with a prescribed ritual. The inscriptions in the seven sanctuaries of 
Abydos, published by Mariette, are full of instruction as to these ordinances, 
which were significant in every detail. 

* According to the representations still preserved in the House of Seti (the 
temple of Qurnah) it was called the Sani-bark. 

*" The inscriptions on the colonnade on the eastern side of the House of 
Seti (the temple of Qurnah) prove that envoys were sent thither to the festival 
even from the Delta. 


UARDA. 


27 


now with the servants, who were trimming the thousand 
lamps for the illumination at night — in short every- 
where; here inciting, there praising. When he had 
convinced himself that all was going on well he desired 
one of the priests to call Pentaur. 

After the departure of the exiled prince Rameri, 
the young priest had gone to the work-room of his 
friend Nebsecht. 

The leech went uneasily from his phials to his cages, 
and from his cages back to his flasks. While he told 
Pentaur of the state he had found his room in on his 
return home, he wandered about in feverish excitement, 
unable to keep still, now kicking over a bundle of plants, 
now thumping down his fist on the table ; his favorite 
birds were starved to death, his snakes had escaped, 
and his ape had followed their example, apparently in 
his fear of them. 

“ The brute, the monster !” cried Nebsecht in a rage. 
“ He has thrown over the jars with the beetles in them, 
opened the chest of meal that I feed the birds and 
insects upon, and rolled about in it; he has thrown my 
knives, prickers, and forceps, my pins, compasses, and 
reed pens all out of window ; and when I came in he 
was sitting on the cupboard up there, looking just like 
a black slave that works night and day in a corn-mill ; 
he had got hold of the roll which contained all my ob- 
servations on the structure of animals — the result of 
years of study —and was looking at it gravely with his 
liead on one side. I wanted to take the book from him, 
but he fled with the roll, sprang out of window, let 
himself down to the edge of the well, and tore and rubbed 
the manuscript to pieces in a rage. I leaped out after 
him, but he jumped into the bucket, took hold of the 


28 


UARDA. 


chain, and let himself down, grinning at me in mockery, 
and when I drew him up again he jumped into the 
water with the remains of the book.” 

‘‘ And the poor wretch is drowned asked Pentaur. 

“ I fished him up with the bucket, and laid him to 
dry in the sun; but he had been tasting all sorts of 
medicines, and he died at noon. My observations are 
gone ! Some of them certainly are still left ; however, 
I must begin again at the beginning. You see apes 
object as much to my labors as sages there lies the 
beast on the shelf.” 

Pentaur had laughed at his friend’s story, and then 
lamented his loss ; but now he said anxiously : 

“ He is lying there on the shelf? But you forget 
that he ought to have been kept in the little oratory of 
Toth near the library. He belongs to the sacred dog- 
faced apes,* and all the sacred marks were found upon 
him. The librarian gave him into your charge to have 
his bad eye cured.” 

“That was quite well,” answered Nebsecht care- 
lessly. 

“ But they will require the uninjured corpse of you, 
to embalm it,” said Pentaur. 

“Will they ?” muttered Nebsecht; and he looked at 
his friend like a boy who is asked for an apple that 
has long been eaten. 

“ And you have already been doing something with 
it,” said Pentaur, in a tone of friendly vexation. 

* The dog-faced baboon, Kynokephalos, was sacred to Toth as the Moon- 
god. Mummies of these apes have been found at Thebes and Hermopolis, and 
they are often represented as reading with much gravity. Statues of them 
have been found in great quantities, and there is a particularly life-like picture 
of a Kynokephalos in relief on the left wall of the library of the temple of Isis 
at Philoe. 


UARDA. 


29 


The leech nodded. ‘T have opened him, and ex- 
amined his heart.” 

“ You are as much set on hearts as a coquette !” said 
Pentaur. “ What is become of the human heart that 
the old paraschites was to get for you ?” 

Nebsecht related without reserve what the old man 
had done for him, and said that he had investigated 
the human heart, and had found nothing in it dif- 
ferent from what he had discovered in the heart of 
beasts. 

“ But I must see it in connection with the other or- 
gans of the human body,” cried he ; “and my decision 
is made. I shall leave the House of Seti, and ask the 
kolchytes to take me into their guild. If it is neces- 
sary I will first perform the duties of the lowest para- 
schites.” 

Pentaur pointed out to the leech what a bad ex- 
change he would be making, and at last exclaimed, 
when Nebsecht eagerly contradicted him, “ This dissect- 
ing of the heart does not please me. You say your- 
self that you learned nothing by it. Do you still 
think it a right thing, a fine thing — or even use- 
ful ?” 

“ I do not trouble myself about it,” replied Nebsecht. 
“ Whether my observations seem good or evil, right or 
heinous, useful or useless, I want to know how things 
are, nothing more.” 

“ And so for mere curiosity,” cried Pentaur, “you 
would endanger the blissful future of thousands of 
your fellow-men, take upon yourself the most abject 
duties, and leave this noble scene of your labors, where 
we all strive for enlightenment, for inward knowledge 
and truth.” 


3 ^ 


UARDA. 


The naturalist laughed scornfully ; the veins swelled 
angrily in Pentaur’s forehead, and his voice took a threat- 
ening tone as he asked : 

“ And do you believe that your finger and your eyes 
have lighted on the truth, when the noblest souls have 
striven in vain for thousands of years to find it out ? 
You descend beneath the level of human understanding 
by madly wallowing in the mire ; and the more clearly 
you are convinced that you have seized the truth, the 
more utterly you are involved in the toils of a miser- 
able delusion.” 

“ If I believed I knew the truth should I so eagerly 
seek it ?” asked Nebsecht. “The more I observe and 
learn, the more deeply I feel my want of knowledge and 
power.” 

“That sounds modest enough,” said the poet, “but 
I know the arrogance to which your labors are lead- 
ing you. Everything that you see with your own eyes 
and touch with your own hand, you think infallible, and 
everything that escapes your observation you secretly 
regard as untrue, and pass by with a smile of superi- 
ority. But you cannot carry your experiments beyond 
the external world, and you forget that there are things 
which lie in a different realm.” 

“I know nothing of those things,” answered Neb- 
secht quietly. 

“ But we — the Initiated,” cried Pentaur, “ turn our 
attention to them also. Thoughts — traditions — as to 
their conditions and agency have existed among us for 
a thousand years ; hundreds of generations of men have 
examined these traditions, have approved them, and have 
handed them down to us. All our knowledge, it is true, 
is defective, and yet prophets have been favored with 


UARBA. 


3 * 


the gift of looking into the future, magic powers have 
been vouchsafed to mortals. All this is contrary to the 
laws of the external world, which are all that you re- 
cognize, and yet it can easily be explained if we accept 
the idea of a higher order of things. The spirit of the 
Divinity dwells in each of us, as in nature. The nat- 
ural man can only attain to such knowledge as is com- 
mon to all ; but it is the divine capacity for serene dis- 
cernment — which is omniscience — that works in the 
seer ; it is the divine and unlimited power — which is 
omnipotence — that from time to time enables the ma- 
gician to produce supernatural effects !” 

“Away with prophets and marvels!” cried Neb- 
secht. 

“ I should have thought,” said Pentaur, “ that even 
the laws of nature which you recognize presented the 
greatest marvels daily to your eyes; nay the Supreme 
One does not disdain sometimes to break through the 
.common order of things, in order to reveal to that 
portion of Himself which we call our soul, the sublime 
Whole of which we form part — Himsglf. Only to- 
day you have seen how the heart of the sacfed ram — ” 

“Man, man!” Nebsecht interrupted, “the sacred 
heart is the heart of a hapless sheep that a sot of a 
soldier sold for a trifle to a haggling grazier, and that 
was slaughtered in a common herd. A proscribed para- 
schites put it into the body of Rui, and — and — ” he 
opened the cupboard, threw the carcase of the ape and 
some clothes on to the floor, and took out an alabaster 
bowl which he held before the poet — “the muscles you 
see here in brine, this machine, once beat in the breast 
of the prophet Rui. My sheep’s heart will be carried 
to-morrow in the procession ! I would have told you 


32 


UARDA. 


all about it if I had not promised the old man to hold 
my tongue, and then — But what ails you, man ?” 

Pentaur had turned away from his friend, and 
covered his face with his hands, and he groaned as if 
he were suffering some frightful physical pain. 

Nebsecht divined what was passing in the mind of 
his friend. Like a child that has to ask forgiveness of 
its mother for some misdeed, he went close up to Pen- 
taur, but stood trembling behind him not daring to 
speak to him. 

Several minutes passed. Suddenly Pentaur raised 
his head, lifted his hands to heaven, and cried : 

“ O Thou ! the One ! — though stars may fall from 
the heavens in summer nights, still Thy eternal and 
immutable laws guide the never-resting* planets in 
their paths. Thou pure and all-prevading Spirit, that 
dwellest in me, as I know by my horror of a lie, mani- 
fest Thyself in me — as light when 1 think, as mercy 
when I act, and when I speak, as truth — always as 
truth !” 

The poet sjx)ke these words with absorbed fervor, 
and Nebsecht heard them as if they were speech from 
some distant and beautiful world. He went affection- 
ately up to his friend, and eagerly held out his hand. 
Pentaur grasped it, pressed it warmly, and said : 

“That was a fearful moment ! You do not know 
what Ameni has been to me, and now, now !” 

He hardly had ceased speaking when steps were 
heard approaching the physician’s room, and a young 
priest requested the friends to appear at once in the 
meeting-room of the Initiated. In a few moments 


* In the sacred writings the planets are called “the Never-resting.’ 


UARDA. 


33 


they both entered the great hall, which was brilliantly 
lighted. 

Not one of the chiefs of the House of Seti was 
absent. 

Ameni sat on a raised seat at a long table ; on his 
right hand was old Gagabu, on his left the third 
Prophet of the temple. The principals of the different 
orders of priests had also found places at the table, 
and among them the chief of the haruspices, while the 
rest of the priests, all in snow-white linen robes, sat, 
with much dignity, in a large semicircle, two rows 
deep. In the midst stood a statue of the Goddess of 
truth and justice. 

Behind Ameni’s throne was the many-colored 
image of the ibis-headed Toth, who presided over the 
measure and method of things, who counselled the 
Gods as well as men, and presided over learning and 
the arts. In a niche at the farther end of the hall 
were painted the divine Triad of Thebes, with Rameses I. 
and his son Seti, who approached them with offerings. 
The priests were placed with strict regard to their rank, 
and the order of initiation. Pentaur’s was the lowest 
place of all. 

No discussion of any importance had as yet taken 
place, for Ameni was making enquiries, receiving in- 
formation, and giving orders with reference to the next 
day’s festival. . AH seemed to be well arranged, and 
promised a magnificent solemnity ; although the scribes 
complained of the scarce influx of beasts from the 
peasants, ho were so heavily taxed for the war ; and 
although that feature would be wanting in the proces- 
sion which w’as wont to give it the greatest splendor 
— the presence of the king and the royal family. 


34 


UARDA. 


This circumstance aroused the disapprobation of 
some of the priests, who were of opinion that it would 
be hazardous to exclude the two children of Rameses, 
who remained in Thebes, from any share in the solem- 
nities of the feast. 

Ameni then rose. 

“We have sent the boy Rameri,” he said, “away 
from this house. Bent-Anat must be purged of her un- 
cleanness, and if the weak superior of the temple of 
Amon absolves her, she may pass for purified over 
there, where they live for this world only, but not here, 
where it is our duty to prepare the soul for death. 
The Regent, a descendant of the great deposed race 
of kings, will appear in the procession with all the 
splendor of his rank. I see you are surprised, my 
friends. Only he! Aye! Great things are stirring, 
and it may happen that soon the mild sun of peace 
may rise upon our war-ridden people.” 

“ Miracles are happening,” he continued, “ and in a 
dream I saw a gentle and pious man on the throne of 
the earthly vicar of Ra. He listened to our counsel, he 
gave us our due, and led back to our fields our serfs 
that had been sent to the war ; he overthrew the altars 
of the strange gods, and drove the unclean stranger out 
from this holy land.” 

“ The Regent Ani !” exclaimed Septah. 

An eager movement stirred the assembly, but 
Ameni went on : 

“ Perhaps it was not unlike him, but he certainly 
was the One; he had the features of the true and 
legitimate descendants of Ra, to whom Rui was faith- 
ful, in whose breast the heart of the sacred ram found 
a refuge. To-morrow this pledge of the divine grace 


UARDA. 


35 


shall be shown to the people, and another mercy will 
also be announced to them. Hear and praise the dis- 
pensations of the Most High ! An hour ago I received 
the news that a new Apis, with all the sacred marks 
upon him, has been found in the herds of Ani at Her- 
monthis.” 

Fresh excitement was shown by the listening con- 
clave. Ameni let their astonishment express itself 
freely, but at last he exclaimed : 

“ And now to settle the last question. The priest 
Pentaur, who is now present, has been appointed 
speaker at the festival to-morrow. He has erred greatly, 
yet I think we need not judge him till after the holy 
day, and, in consideration of his former innocence, need 
not deprive him of the honorable office. Do you 
share my wishes? Is there no dissentient voice? Then 
come forward, you, the youngest of us all, who are so 
highly trusted by this holy assembly.” 

Pentaur rose and placed himself opposite to Ameni, 
in order to give, as he was required to do, a broad 
outline of the speech he proposed to deliver next day 
to the nobles and the people. 

The whole assembly, even his opponents, listened 
to him with approbation. Ameni, too, praised him, but 
added : 

‘‘ I miss only one thing on which you must dwell 
at greater length, and treat with warmer feeling — I 
mean the miracle which has stirred our souls to-day. 
We must show that the Gods brought the sacred 
heart — ” 

“ Allow me,” said Pentaur, interrupting the high- 
priest, and looking earnestly into those eyes which 
long since he had sung of— “Allow me to entreat you 


36 


UARDA. 


not to select me to declare this new marvel to the 
people.” 

Astonishment was stamped on the face of every 
member of the assembly. Each looked at his neigh- 
bor, then at Pentaur, and at last enquiringly at 
Ameni. The superior knew Pentaur, and saw that no 
mere whimsical fancy, but some serious motive had 
given rise to this refusal. Horror, almost aversion, had 
rung in his tone as he said the words ‘ new marvel.’ 

He doubted the genuineness of this divine mani- 
festation ! 

Ameni gazed long and enquiringly into Pentaur’s 
eyes, and then said: “You are right, my friend. Be- 
fore judgment has been passed on you, before you are 
reinstated in your old position, your lips are not worthy 
to announce this divine wonder to the multitude. 
Look into your own soul, and teach the devout a 
horror of sin, and show them the way, which you must 
now tread, of purification of the heart. I myself will 
announce the miracle.” 

The white-robed audience hailed this decision of 
their master with satisfaction. Ameni enjoined this 
thing on one, on another, that; and on all, perfect 
silence as to the dream which he had related to them, 
and then he dissolved the meeting. He begged only 
Gagabu and Pentaur to remain. 

As soon as they were alone Ameni asked the poet : 
“ Why did you refuse to announce to the people the 
miracle, which has filled all the priests of the Necro- 
polis with joy ?” 

“ Because thou hast taught me,” replied Pentaur, 
“ that truth is the highest aim we can have, and that 
there is nothing higher,” 


UARDA, 


37 


I tell you so again now,” said Ameni. “ And as 
you recognize this doctrine, I ask you, in the name of 
the fair daughter of Ra Do you doubt the genuine- 

ness of the miracle that took place under our very 
eyes ? ” 

“ I doubt it,” replied Pentaur. 

“ Remain on the high stand-point of veracity,” con- 
tinued Ameni, ‘‘and tell us further, that we may learn, 
what are the scruples that shake thy faith ?” 

“ I know,” replied the poet with a dark expression, 
“ that the heart which the crowd will approach and 
bow to, before which even the Initiated prostrate them- 
selves as if it had been the incarnation of Ra, was 
torn from the bleeding carcass of a common sheep, 
and smuggled into the kanopus which contained the 
entrails of Rui.” 

Ameni drew back a step, and Gagabu cried out: 
“Who says so? Who can prove it ? As I grow older 
I hear more and more frightful things !” 

“ I know it,” said Pentaur decidedly. “ But I can- 
not reveal the name of him from whom I learned it.” 

“Then we may believe that you are mistaken, and 
that some impostor is fooling you. We will enquire 
who has devised such a trick, and he shall be punished ! 
To scorn the voice of the Divinity is a sin, and he who 
lends his ear to a lie is far from the truth. Sacred 
and thrice sacred is the heart, blind fool, that I pur- 
pose to-morrow to show to the people, and before which 
you yourself — if not with good will, then by compul- 
sion — shall fall, prostrate in the dust. 

“ Go now, and reflect on the words with which you 
will stir the souls of the people to-morrow morning; 
but know one thing — Truth has many forms, and her 


UARDA, 


3^^ 

aspects are as manifold as those of the Godhead. As 
the sun does not travel over a level plain or by a 
straight path — as the stars follow a circuitous course, 
which we compare with the windings of the snake 
Mehen,* — so the elect, who look out over time and 
space, and on whom the conduct of human life de- 
volves, are not only permitted, but commanded, to fol- 
low indirect ways in order to reach the highest aims, 
ways that you do not understand, and which you may 
fancy deviate widely from the path of truth. You look 
only at to-day, we look forward to the morrow, and 
what we announce as truth you must needs believe. 
And mark my words: A lie stains the soul, but doubt 
eats into it.” 

Ameni had spoken with strong excitement; when 
Pentaur had left the room, and he was alone with 
Gagabu, he exclaimed : 

“What things are these? Who is ruining the in- 
nocent child-like spirit of this highly favored youth ?” 

“ He is ruining it himself,” replied Gagabu. “ He 
is putting aside the old law, for he - feels a new one 
growing up in his own breast.” 

“ But the laws,” exclaimed Ameni, “ grow and spread 
like shadowy woods; they are made by no one. I loved 
the poet, yet I must restrain him, else he will break 
down all barriers, like the Nile when it swells too high. 
And what he says of the miracle — ” 

“ Did you devise it ?” 


* The snake Mehen (termed in the texts proceeding “from what is in the 
abyss ”) is frequently represented in waves and curves, symbolizing the wind- 
ing course of the sun during the night, in the under-world. Mythological 
figures of snakes have quite as often a benevolent as a malevolent signifi- 
cance; snakes were kept in every temple, and mummies of snakes, particu- 
larly of Viptra cerastts, are found at Thebes. Plutarch says the snake was 
held sacred because it glides along without limbs, like the stars. 


tJARt>A. 


39 


By the Holy One — no !” cried Ameni. 

“ And yet Pentaur is sincere, and inclined to faith,” 
said the old man doubtfully. 

“ I know it,” returned Ameni. “ It happened as he 
said. But who did it, and who told him of the shame- 
ful deed ?” 

Both the priests stood thoughtfully gazing at the 
floor. 

Ameni first broke the silence. 

“ Pentaur came in with Nebsecht,” he exclaimed, 
** and they are intimate friends. Where was the leech 
while I was staying in Thebes ?” 

“ He was taking care of the child hurt by Bent- 
Anat — the child of the paraschites Pinem, and he 
stayed there three days,” replied Gagabu. 

“ And it was Pinem,” said Ameni, “ that opened the 
body of Rui ! Now I know who has dimmed Pentaur’s 
faith. It was that inquisitive stutterer, and he shall be 
made to repent of it. For the present let us think of 
to-morrow’s feast, but the day after I will examine that 
nice couple, and will act with iron severity.” 

“ First let us examine the naturalist in private,” said 
Gagabu. “ He is an ornament to the temple, for he 
las investigated many matters, and his dexterity is 
vvonderful.” 

“ All that may be considered after the festival,” 
Ameni said, interrupting the old man. “We have 
enough to think of at present.” 

“ And even more to consider later,” retorted Ga- 
gabu. “ We have entered on a dangerous path. You 
know very well I am still hot-headed, though I am 
old in years, and alas ! timidity was never my weak- 
ness ; but Rameses is a powerful man, and duty com- 


40 


uarda. 


pels me to ask you : Is it mere hatred for the king that 
has led you to take these hasty and imprudent steps ?” 

“ I have no hatred for Rameses,” answered Ameni 
gravely. “ If he did not wear the crown I could love 
him ; I know him too, as well as if I were his brother, 
and value all that is great in him; nay I will admit 
that he is disfigured by no littleness. If I did not 
know how strong the enemy is, we might try to over- 
throw him with smaller means. You know as well as 
I do that he is our enemy. Not yours, nor mine, nor 
the enemy of the Gods ; but the enemy of the old and 
reverend ordinances by which this people and this 
country must be governed, and above all of those who 
are required to protect the wisdom of the fathers, and 
to point out the right way to the sovereign — I mean the 
priesthood, whom it is my duty to lead, and for 
whose rights I will fight with every weapon of the 
spirit. In this contest, as you know, all that otherwise 
would be falsehood, treachery, and cunning, puts on 
the bright aspect of light and truth. As the physician 
needs the knife and fire to heal the sickj we must do 
fearful things to save the community when it is in 
danger. Now you will see me fight with every weapon, 
for if we remain idle, we shall soon cease to be the 
leaders of the state, and become the slaves of the 
king.” 

Gagabu nodded assent, but Ameni went on with 
increasing warmth, and in that rhythmical accent in 
which, when he came out of the holy of holies, he 
was accustomed to declare the will of the Divinity : 
“ You were my teacher, and I value you, and so you 
now shall be told everything that stirred my soul, and 
made me first resolve upon this fearful struggle, I was. 


tJARDA. 


4i 


as you know, brought up in this temple with Rameses 
— and it was very wise of Seti to let his son grow up 
here with other boys. At work and at play the heir 
to the throne and I won every prize. He was quite 
my superior in swift apprehension — in keen percep- 
tion — ^but I had greater caution, and deeper purpose. 
Often he laughed at my laborious efforts, but his 
brilliant powers appeared to me a vain delusion. I 
became one of the initiated, he ruled the state in 
partnership with his father, and, when Seti died, by 
himself. We both grew older, but the foundation of 
our characters remained the same. He rushed to 
splendid victories, overthrew nations, and raised the 
glory of the Egyptian name to a giddy height, though 
stained with the blood of his people ; I passed my life 
in industry and labor, in teaching the young, and 
in guarding the laws which regulate the intercourse 
of men and bind the people to the Divinity. I 
compared the present with the past : What were the 
priests ? How had they come to be what they are ? 
What would Egypt be without them ? There is 
not an art, not a science, not a faculty that is not 
thought out, constructed, and practised by us. We 
crown the kings, we named the Gods, and taught the 
people to honor them as divine — for the crowd needs 
a hand to lead it, and under which it shall tremble as 
under the mighty hand of Fate. We are the willing 
ministers of the divine representative of Ra on the 
throne, so long as he rules in accordance with our in- 
stitutions — as the One God reigns, subject to eternal 
laws. He used to choose his counsellors from among 
us; we told him what would benefit the country, he 
heard us willingly, and executed our plans. The old 
25 


tJARDA. 


4i 

kings were the hands, but we, the priests, Wete the 
head. And now, my father, what has become of us ? 
We are made use of to keep the people in the faith, 
for if they cease to honor the Gods how will they 
submit to kings ? Seti ventured much, his son risks 
still more, and therefore both have required much suc- 
cor from the Immortals. Rameses is pious, he sacri- 
fices frequently, and loves prayer: we are necessary 
to him, to waft incense, to slaughter hecatombs, to 
offer prayers, and to interpret dreams — but we are no 
longer his advisers. My father, now in Osiris, a worthier 
high-priest than I, was charged by the Prophets to 
entreat his father to give up the guilty project of 
connecting the north sea by a navigable channel with 
the unclean waters of the Red Sea.* Such things can 
only benefit the Asiatics. But Seti would not listen 
to our counsel. We desired to preserve the old division 
of the land, but Rameses introduced the new to the 
disadvantage of the priests; we warned him against 
fresh wars, and the king again and again has taken 
the field ; we had the ancient sacred documents which 
exempted our peasantry from military service, and, 
as you know, he outrageously defies them. From the 
most ancient times no one has been permitted to raise 
temples in this land to strange Gods, and Rameses 
favors the son of the stranger, and, not only in the 
north country, but in the reverend city of Memphis 
and here in Thebes, he has raised altars and magnifi- 


* The harbors of the Red Sea were in the hands of the Phoenicians, who 
sailed from thence southwards to enrich themselves with the produce of 
Arabia and Ophir. Pharaoh Necho also projected a Suez canal, but does not 
appear to have carried it out, as the oracle declared that the utility of the 
undertaking would be greatest to foreigners. 


UARDA. 43 

cent sanctuaries, in the strangers’ quarter, to the 
sanguinary* false Gods of the East.” 

“You speak like a Seer,” cried old Gagabu, “and 
what you say is perfectly true. We are still called 
priests, but alas ! our counsel is little asked. ‘ You have 
to prepare men for a happy lot in the other world,’ 
Rameses once said; ‘I alone can guide their destinies 
in this.’ ” 

“ He did say so,” answered Ameni, “ and if he had 
said no more than that he would have been doomed. 
He and his house are the enemies of our rights and 
of our noble country. Need I tell you from whom 
the race of the Pharaoh is descended ? Formerly the 
hosts who came from the east, and fell on our land 
like swarms of locusts, robbing and destroying it, were 
spoken of as ‘ a curse ’ and a ‘ pest.’ Rameses’ father 
was of that race. When Ani’s ancestors expelled the 
Hyksos, the bold chief, whose children now govern 
Egypt, obtained the favor of being allowed to re- 
main on the banks of the Nile; they served in the 
armies, they distinguished themselves, and, at last, the 
first Rameses succeeded in gaining the troops over to 
himself, and in pushing the old race of the legitimate 
sons of Ra, weakened as they were by heresy, from 
the throne. I must confess, however unwillingly, that 
some priests of the true faith — among them your 
grandfather, and mine — supported the daring usurper 
who clung faithfully to the old traditions. Not less 
than a hundred generations of my ancestors, and of 
yours, and of many other priestly families, have lived 
and died here by the banks of the Nile — of Rameses’ 

* Human sacrifices, which had been introduced into Egypt by the Phoeni- 
cians, were very early abolished. 


44 


UARDA. 


race we have seen ten, and only know of them that 
they descend from strangers, from the caste of Amu ! 
He is like all the Semitic race ; they love to wander, 
they call us ploughmen,* and laugh to scorn the sober 
regularity with which we, tilling the dark soil, live 
through our lives to a tardy death, in honest labor 
both of mind and body. They sweep round on foraying 
excursions, ride the salt waves in ships, and know no 
loved and fixed home; they settle down wherever 
they are tempted by rapine, and when there is nothing 
more to be got they build a house in another spot. 
Such was Seti, such is Rameses ! For a year he will 
stop in Thebes, then he must set out for wars in 
strange lands. He does not know how to yield piously, 
or to take advice of wise counsellors, and he will not 
learn. And such as the father is, so are the children ! 
Think of the criminal behavior of Bent-Anat !” 

“ I said the kings liked foreigners. Have you duly 
considered the importance of that to us ? We strive 
for high and noble aims, and have wrenched off the 
shackles of the flesh in order to guard our souls. The 
poorest man lives secure under the shelter of the law, and 
through us participates in the gifts of the spirit ; to the 
rich are offered the priceless treasures of art and 
learning. Now look abroad : east and west wandering 
tribes roam over the desert with wretched tents; in 
the south a debased populace prays to feathers, and to 
abject idols, who are beaten if the worshipper is not 
satisfied. In the north certainly there are well regulated 
states, but the best part of the arts and sciences which 
they possess they owe to us, and their altars still reek 
with the loathsome sacrifice of human blood. Only 

* The word Fellah (pi. Fellahin) means ploughman. 


UARDA. 


45 


backsliding from the right is possible under the stranger, 
and therefore it is prudent to withdraw from him; 
therefore he is hateful to our Gods. And Rameses, 
the king, is a stranger, by blood and by nature, in his 
affections, and in his appearance; his thoughts are 
always abroad — this country is too small for him — and 
he will never perceive what is really best for him, 
clear as his intellect is. He will listen to no guidance, 
he does mischief to Egypt, and therefore I say : Down 
with him from the throne! ” 

“ Down with him !” — Gagabu eagerly echoed the 
words. Ameni gave the old man his hand, which 
trembled with excitement, and went on more calmly. 

“ The Regent Ani is a legitimate child of the soil, 
by his father and mother both. I know him well, and 
I am sure that though he is cunning indeed, he is full 
of true veneration, and will righteously establish us in 
the rights which we have inherited. The choice is easy : 
I have chosen, and I always carry through what I 
have once begun ! Now you know all, and you will 
second me.” 

“ With body and soul !” cried Gagabu. 

“ Strengthen the hearts of the brethren,” said 
Ameni, preparing to go. “ The initiated may all guess 
what is going on, but it must never be spoken of.” 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

The sun was up on the twenty-ninth morning of 
the second month of the over-flow of the Nile,* and 

* The 29th Phaophi. The Egyptians divided the year into three seasons 
of four months each. Flood-time, Seed-time and Harvest. {ScAa, per and 
S(hemu ) The 29th Phaophi corresponds to the 8th November. 


46 


UARDA. 


citizens and their wives, old men and children, free- 
men and slaves, led by priests, did homage to the 
rising day-star before the door of the temple to which 
the quarter of the town belonged where each one 
dwelt. 

The Thebans stood together like huge families be- 
fore the pylons, waiting for the processions of priests, 
which they intended to join in order to march in their 
train round the great temple of the city, and thence to 
cross with the festal barks to the Necropolis. 

To-day was the Feast of the Valley, and Amon, 
the great God of Thebes, was carried over in solemn 
pomp to the City of the Dead, in order that he — as the 
priests said * — might sacrifice to his fathers in the other 
world. The train marched westward ; for there, where 
the earthly remains of man also found rest, the millions 
of suns had disappeared, each of which was succeeded 
daily by a new one, bom of the night. The young 
luminary, the priests said, did not forget those that had 
been extinguished, and from whom he was descended ; 
and Amon paid them this mark of respect to warn the 
devout not to forget those who were passed away, and 
to whom they owed their existence. 

“ Bring offerings,” says a pious text, “ to thy father 
and thy mother who rest in the valley of the tombs ; 
for such gifts are pleasing to the Gods, who will receive 
them as if brought to themselves. Often visit thy dead, 
so that what thou dost for them, thy son may do for 
thee.”** 

The Feast of the Valley was a feast of the dead ; 

* Maspero, M6moire sur quelques Papyrus du Louvre, p. 75. Pap. 3. 
Bulaq, V. 3, lines 22, 23. 

** From the Papyrus IV. at Bulaq, which contains moral precepts. It has 
been published by Mariette, and translated by Brugsch, E. de Rouge, and lastly 
treated with admirable analysis by Chabas, in I’Egyptologie. 


UARDA. 


47 


but it was not a melancholy solemnity, observed with 
lamentation and wailing; on the contrary, it was a 
cheerful festival, devoted to pious and sentimental 
memories of those whom we cease not to love after 
death, whom we esteem happy and blest, and of whom 
we think with affection ; to whom too the throng from 
Thebes brought offerings, forming groups in the chapel- 
like tombs, or in front of the graves, to eat and drink. 

Father, mother and children clung together ; the 
house-slaves followed with provisions, and with torches, 
which would light up the darkness of the tomb and 
show the way home at night. 

Even the poorest had taken care to secure before- 
hand a place in one of the large boats which conveyed 
the people across the stream ; the barges of the rich, 
dressed in the gayest colors, awaited their owners 
with their households, and the children had dreamed 
all night of the sacred bark of Amon, whose splendor, 
as their mothers told them, was hardly less than that 
of the golden boat in which the Sun- God and his 
companions make their daily voyage across the ocean 
of heaven. The broad landing place of the temple 
of Amon was already crowded with priests, the shore 
with citizens, and the river with boats ; already loud 
music drowned the din of the crowds, who thronged 
and pushed, enveloped in clouds of dust, to reach the 
boats ; the houses and hovels of Thebes were all empty, 
and the advent of the God through the temple-gates 
was eagerly expected; but still the members of the 
royal family had not appeared, who were wont on 
this solemn day to go on foot to the great temple of 
Amon; and, in the crowd, many a one asked his 
neighbor why Bent-Anat, the fair daughter of Rameses, 


48 




lingered so long, and delayed the starting of the pro- 
cession. 

The priests had begun their chant within the walls, 
which debarred the outer world from any glimpse into 
the bright precincts of the temple; the Regent with his 
brilliant train had entered the sanctuary ; the gates were 
thrown open ; the youths in their short-aprons, who 
threw flowers in the path of the God, had come out ; 
clouds of incense announced the approach of Amon — 
and still the daughter of Rameses appeared not. 

Many rumors were afloat, most of them contra- 
dictory ; but one was accurate, and confirmed by the 
temple servants, to the great regret of the crowd — Bent- 
Anat was excluded from the Feast of the Valley. 

She stood on her balcony with her brother Rameri 
and her friend Nefert, and looked down on the river, 
and on the approaching God. 

Early in the previous morning Bek-en-Chunsu, the 
old high-priest of the temple of Amon had pronounced 
her clean, but in the evening he had come to com- 
municate to her the intelligence that Ameni prohibited 
her entering the Necropolis before she had obtained 
the forgiveness of the Gods of the West for her 
offence. 

While still under the ban of uncleanness she had 
visited the temple of Hathor, and had defiled it by her 
presence; and the stern Superior of the City of the 
Dead was in the right — that Bek-en-Chunsu himself 
admitted — ^in closing the western shore against her. 
Bent-Anat then had recourse to Ani ; but, though he 
promised to mediate for her, he came late in the even- 
ing to tell her that Ameni was inexorable. The Regent 
at the same time, with every appearance of regret, 


UARDA, 


49 


advised her to avoid an open quarrel, and not to defy 
Ameni’s lofty severity, but to remain absent from the 
festival. 

Katuti at the same time sent the dwarf to Nefert, 
to desire her to join her mother, in taking part in 
the procession, and in sacrificing in her father’s tomb; 
but Nefert replied that she neither could nor would 
leave her royal friend and mistress. 

Bent-Anat had given leave of absence to the highest 
members of her household, and had prayed them to 
think of her at the splendid solemnity. 

When, from her balcony, she saw the mob of 
people and the crowd of boats, she went back into her 
room, called Rameri, who was angrily declaiming at 
what he called Ameni’s insolence, took his hands in 
hers, and said : 

“ We have both done wrong, brother ; let us patiently 
submit to the consequences of our faults, and conduct 
ourselves as if our father were with us.” 

“ He would tear the panther-skin from the haughty 
priest’s shoulders,” cried Rameri, “ if he dared to 
humiliate you so in his presence;” and tears of rage 
ran down his smooth cheeks as he spoke. 

“Put anger aside,” said Bent-Anat. “You were 
still quite little the last time my father took part in 
this festival.” 

“ Oh ! I remember that morning well,” exclaimed 
Rameri, “ and shall never forget it.” 

“ So I should think,” said the princess. “ Do not 
leave us, Nefert — you are now my sister. It was a 
glorious morning; we children were collected in the 
great hall of the King, all in festival dresses ; he had 
us called into this room, which had been inhabited by 


50 


UARDA. 


my mother, who then had been dead only a few 
months. He took each of us by the hand, and said 
he forgave us everything we might have done wrong 
if only we were sincerely penitent, and gave us each 
a kiss on our forehead. Then he beckoned us all to 
him, and said, as humbly as if he were one of us in- 
stead of the great king, ‘ Perhaps I may have done one 
of you some injustice, or have kept you out of some 
right ; I am not conscious of such a thing, but if it has 
occurred I am very sorry’ — we all rushed upon him, 
and wanted to kiss him, but he put us aside smiling, 
and said, ‘ Each of you has enjoyed an equal share of 
one thing, that you may be sure — I mean your father’s 
love ; and I see now that you return what I have given 
you.’ Then he spoke of our mother, and said that 
even the tenderest father could not fill the place of a 
mother. He drew a lovely picture of the unselfish de- 
votion of the dead mother, and desired us to pray and 
to sacrifice with him at her resting-place, and to resolve 
to be worthy of her; not only in great things but in 
trifles too, for they make up the sum of life, as hours 
make the days, and the years. We elder ones clasped 
each other’s hands, and I never felt happier than in 
that moment, and afterwards by my mother’s grave.” 

Nefert raised her eyes that were wet with tears. 

“ With such a father it must be easy to be good,” 
she said. 

“ Did your mother never speak good words that 
went to your heart on the morning of this festival ?” 
asked Bent-Anat. 

Nefert colored, and answered: “We were always 
late in dressing, and then had to hurry to be at the 
temple in time.” 


UARDA. 


51 


^‘Then let me be your mother to-day,” cried the 
princess, “ and yours too, Rameri. Do you not remem- 
ber how my father offered forgiveness to the officers of 
the court, and to all the servants, and how he enjoined 
us to root out every grudge from our hearts on this 
day ? ‘ Only stainless garments,’ he said, ‘ befit this 

feast ; only hearts without spot.’ So, brother, I will not 
hear an evil word about Ameni, who is most likely 
forced to be severe by the law ; my father will enquire 
into it all and decide. My heart is so full, it must over- 
flow. Come, Nefert, give me a kiss, and you too, 
Rameri. Now I will go into my little temple, in which 
the images of our ancestors stand, and think of my 
mother and the blessed spirits of those loved ones to 
whom I may not sacrifice to-day.” 

“ I will go with you,” said Rameri. 

“ You, Nefert — stay here,” said Bent-Anat, “ and cut 
as many flowers as you like ; take the best and finest, 
and make a wreath, and when it is ready we will send 
a messenger across to lay it, with other gifts, on the 
grave of your Mena’s mother.” 

When, half-an-hour later, the brother and sister 
returned to the young wife, two graceful garlands hung 
in Nefert’s hands, one for the grave of the dead queen, 
and one for Mena’s mother. 

“ I will carry over the wreaths, and lay them in 
the tombs,” cried the prince. 

“Ani thought it would be better that we should 
not show ourselves to the people,” said his sister. 
“ They will scarcely notice that you are not among the 
school-boys, but — ” 

“ But I will not go over as the king’s son, but as a 
gardener’s boy — ” interrupted the prince. “ Listen to 


5 - 


UARDA. 


the flourish of triimpets ! the God has now passed 
through the gates.” 

Rameri stepped out into the l^alcony, and the two 
women followed him, and looked down on the scene 
of the embarkation which they could easily see with 
their sharp young eyes. 

“ It will be a thinner and poorer procession* 
without either my father or us, that is one comfort,” 
said Rameri. “ The chorus is magnificent ; here come 
the plume-bearers and singers ; there is the chief 
prophet at the great temple, old Bek-en-Chunsu. How 
dignified he looks, but he will not like going. Now 
the God is coming, for I smell the incense.” 

With these words the prince fell on his knees, and 
the women followed his example — when they saw first a 
noble bull in whose shining skin the sun was reflected, 
and who bore between his horns a golden disk, 
above which stood white ostrich-feathers; and then, 
divided from the bull only by a few fan-bearers, the 
God himself, sometimes visible, but more often hidden 
from sight by great semi-circular screens of black and 
white ostrich-feathers, which were fixed on long poles, 
and with which the priests shaded the God. 

His mode of progress was as mysterious as his name, 
for he seemed to float slowly on his gorgeous throne 
from the temple-gates towards the stream. His seat 
was placed on a platform, magnificently decorated with 
bunches and garlands of flowers, and covered with 
hangings of purple and gold brocade, which concealed 
the priests who bore it along with a slow and even 
pace. 

^ I have been guided in my description of the procession by the repre. 
scntation of the feast of the Steps at Medinet Abu. 


UARDA. 


S3 


As soon as the God had been placed on board his 
barge, Bent-Anat and her companions rose from their 
knees. 

Then came some priests, who carried a box with 
the sacred evergreen tree of Amon ; and when a fresh 
outburst of music fell on her ear, and a cloud of in- 
cense was wafted up to her, Bent-Anat said: “Now 
my father should be coming.” 

“ And you,” cried Rameri, “ and close behind, 
Nefert’s husband, Mena, with the guards. Uncle Ani 
comes on foot. How strangely he has dressed himself 
like a sphinx hind-part before !” 

“ How so ?” asked Nefert. 

“ A sphinx,” s^id Rameri laughing, “ has the body 
of a lion, and the head of a man,* and my uncle has 
a peaceful priest’s robe, and on his head the helmet of a 
w’arrior.” 

“ If the king were here, the distributor of life,” said 
Nefert, “ you would not be missing from among his 
supporters.” 

No indeed !” replied the prince, “ and the whole 
thing is altogether different when my father is here. 
His heroic form is splendid on his golden throne ; the 
statues of Truth and Justice spread their wings behind 
him as if to protect him ; his mighty representative in 
fight, the lion, lies peacefully before him, and over him 
spreads the canopy with the Uraeus snake at the top. 
There is hardly any end to the haruspices, the pasto- 
phori with the standards, the images of the Gods, and 
the flocks and herds for sacrifice. Only think, even 
the North has sent representatives to the feast, as if my 

• There were no female sphinxes in Egypt. The sphinx was called Neb, 
i. e., the lord. The lion-couchant had either a man’s or a ram’s head. 


54 


UARDA. 


father were here. I knoAv all the different signs on the 
standards.* Do you recognize the images of the king’s 
ancestors, Nefert? No? no more do I; but it seemed 
to me that Ahmes I., who expelled the Hyksos — from 
whom our grandmother . was descended — headed the 
procession, and not my grandfather Seti, as he should 
have done. Here come the soldiers; they are the 
legions which Ani equipped, and who returned vic- 
torious from Ethiopia only last night. How the people 
cheer them ! and indeed they have behaved valiantly. 
Only think, Bent-Anat and Nefert, what it will be when 
my father comes home, with a hundred captive princes, 
who will humbly follow his chariot, which your Mena 
will drive, with our brothers and all the nobles of the 
land, and the guards in their splendid chariots.” 

“ They do not think of returning yet !” sighed Nefert. 

While more and more troops of the Regent’s sol- 
diers, more companies of musicians, and rare animals,** 
followed in procession, the festal bark of Amon started 
from the shore. 

It was a large and gorgeous barge of wood, polished 
all over and overlaid with gold, and its edge was deco- 
rated with glittering glass-beads,*** which imitated 
rubies and emeralds; the masts and yards were gilt. 


* Every Nomos or province of Egypt had its heraldic badge, which on 
solemn occasions was earned as a standard. There were complete lists of the 
forty-four provinces as early as the time of Seti I. Those of Philse, Edfu and 
Dendera give many interesting details, particularly as to the religious ob- 
servances, in each Nomos. See Harris, Brugsch, Dumichen, and J. de Rouge. 

** A great number of foreign beasts were introduced in a procession under 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, which is graphically described by Callixenus, an eye- 
witness. The Lagides imitated a custom which, as we learn from the pictures 
in the tomb of Rech ma Ra, i8th dynasty, e.xisted in very early times. 

*** These were manufactured by the Egyptians, with great skill, in various 
forms and colors. In the Minutoli collection and many others, particularly the 
one at Bulaq, are specimens of mosaic jewelry, which even the best workmen of 
modern times would find it difficult to imitate. 


UARDA. 


55 


and purple sails floated from them. The seats for 
the priests were of ivory, and garlands of lilies and 
roses hung round the vessel, from its masts and ropes. 

The Regent’s Nile-boat was not less splendid; the 
wood-work shone with gilding, the cabin was furnished 
with gay Babylonian carpets ; a lion’s-head formed the 
prow, as formerly in Hatasu’s sea-going vessels, and 
two large rubies shone in it, for eyes. After the priests 
had embarked, and the sacred barge had reached the 
opposite shore, the people pressed into the boats, which, 
filled almost to sinking, soon so covered the whole 
breadth of the river that there was hardly a spot where 
the sun was mirrored in the yellow waters. 

“ Now I will put on the dress of a gardener,” cried 
Rameri, “ and cross over with the wreaths.” 

“You will leave us alone ?” asked Bent-Anat. 

“ Do not make me anxious,” said Rameri. 

“ Go then,” said the princess. “ If my father were 
here how willingly I would go too.” 

“ Come with me,” cried the boy. “We can easily 
find a disguise for you too.” 

“ Folly!” said Bent-Anat ; but she looked enquiringly 
at Nefert, who shrugged her shoulders, as much as to 
say: “Your will is my law.” 

Rameri was too sharp for the glances of the friends 
to have escaped him, and he exclaimed eagerly : 

“ You will come with me, I see you will I Every 
beggar to-day flings his flower into the common grave, 
which contains the black mummy of his father — and 
shall the daughter of Rameses, and the wife of the 
chief charioteer, be from bringing garlands to 

their dead?” 


56 


UARDA. 


“ I shall defile the tomb by my presence,” said 
Bent-Anat coloring. 

“ You — you !” exclaimed Rameri, throwing his arms 
round his sister’s neck, and kissing her. “You, a noble 
generous creature, who live only to ease sorrow and 
to wipe away tears ; you, the very image of my father 
— unclean ! sooner would I believe that the swans down 
there are as black as crows, and the rose- wreaths on the 
balcony rank hemlock branches. Bek-en-Chunsu. pro- 
nounced you clean, and if Ameni — ” 

“ Ameni only exercises his rights,” said Bent-Anat 
gently, “ and you know what we have resolved. I will 
not hear one hard word about him to-day.” 

“Very well! he has graciously and mercifully kept 
us from the feast,” said Rameri ironically, and he 
bowed low in the direction of the Necropolis, “and you 
are unclean. Do not enter the tombs and the temples 
on my account; let us stay outside among the people. 
The roads over there are not so very sensitive ; para- 
schites and other unclean folks pass over them every 
day. Be sensible, Bent-Anat, and come. We will dis- 
guise ourselves ; I will conduct you ; I will lay the gar- 
lands in the tombs, we will pray together outside, Ave 
•will see the sacred procession and the feats of the 
magicians, and hear the festive discourse. Only think ! 
Pentaur, in spite of all they have said against him, is 
to deliver it. The temple of Seti wants to do its best 
to-day, and Ameni knows very well that Pentaur, when 
he opens his mouth, stirs the hearts of the people more 
than all the sages together if they were to sing in 
chorus 1 Come with me, sister.” 

“ So be it then,” said Bent-Anat with sudden de- 
cision. 


UARDA. 


57 


Rameri was surprised at this quick resolve, at which 
however he was delighted; but Nefert looked anxiously 
at her friend. In a moment her eyes fell; she knew 
now who it was that her friend loved, and the fearful 
thought — “ How will it end ? ” flashed through her mind. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

An hour later a tall, plainly dressed woman crossed 
the Nile, with a dark-skinned boy and a slender youth by 
her side. The wrinkles on her brow and cheeks agreed 
little with her youthful features; but it would have been 
difficult to recognize in these three the proud princess, 
the fair young prince, and the graceful Nefert, who 
looked as charming as ever in the long white robe of a 
temple-student. 

They were followed by two faithful and sturdy 
head-servants from among the litter-bearers of the 
princess, who were however commanded to appear as 
though they were not in any way connected with their 
mistress and her companions. 

The passage across the Nile had been accomplished 
but slowly, and thus the royal personages had ex- 
perienced for the first time some of the many difficulties 
and delays which ordinary mortals must conquer to at- 
tain objects which almost fly to meet their rulers. No 
one preceded them to clear the river, no other vessel 
made way for them; on the contrary, all tried to take 
place ahead of them, and to reach the opposite shore 
before them. 

When at last they reached the landing-place, the 
procession had already passed on to the temple of Seti; 

26 


S8 


UARDA. 


Ameni had met it with his chorus of singers, and had 
received the God on the shore of the Nile; the prophets 
of the Necropolis had with their own hands placed him 
in the sacred Sam-bark* of the House of Seti, which was 
artistically constructed of cedar wood and electrum set 
with jewels; thirty pastophori took the precious burden 
on their shoulders, and bore it up the avenue of Sphinxes 
— which led from the river to the temple — into the 
sanctuary of Seti, where Amon remained while the emis- 
saries from the different provinces deposited their offer- 
ings in the forecourt. On his road from the shore 
kolchytes** had run before him, in accordance with 
ancient custom, strewing sand in his path. 

In the course of an hour the procession once more 
emerged into the open air, and turning to the south, 
rested first in the enormous temple of Amenophis III., 
in front of which the two giant statues stood as sentinels 
— they still remain, the colossi of the Nile valley. Far- 
ther to the south it reached the temple of Thotmes the 
Great,*** then, turning round, it clung to the eastern 
face of the Libyan hillst — pierced with tombs and cata- 
combs; it mounted the terraces of the temple of Hatasu, 
and paused by the tombs of the oldest kingsft which are 
in the immediate neighborhood; thus by sunset it had 
reached the scene of the festival itself, at the entrance of 
the valley in which the tomb of Setifff had been made, 

* The sacred vessel of the God is so called in a picture still extant at 
Qumah. 

** Peyron, Papyri Graeci regii Taurinenses, t. I, p. 41, 42, 85-88. 

*** The oldest portion of the temple of Medinet Abu. Lepsius and Rhind 
(Thebes, and its Temples) both give plans which make the path of procession 
easy to trace, Lepsius, “ Denkmaler aus Egypten,” is a splendid work in folio, 
t The modem Qumet Murrai and Abd el Qumah. 
tt The modern el Assassif and Drah abu’l Negga, 
ttt Th® niodcm Biban el Muluk. 


uarda. 


59 


and in whose westernmost recesses were some of the 
graves of the Pharaohs of the deposed race. 

This part of the Necropolis was usually visited by 
lamp-light, and under the flare of torches, before the re- 
turn of the God to his own temple and the mystery-play 
on the sacred lake, which did not begin till midnight. 

Behind the God, in a vase of transparent crystal, 
and borne high on a pole that all the multitude might 
see it, was the heart of the sacred ram. 

Our friends, after they had laid their wreaths on the 
magnificent altars of their royal ancestors without being 
recognized, late in the afternoon joined the throng who 
followed the procession. They mounted the eastern 
cliff of the hills close by the tomb of Mena’s forefathers, 
which a prophet of Am on, named Neferhotep — Mena’s 
great-grandfather — had constructed. Its narrow door- 
way was besieged by a crowd, for within the first of the 
rock-chambers of which it consisted, a harper was sing- 
ing a dirge for the long-since buried prophet, his wife and 
his sister. The song had been composed by the poet 
attached to his house; it was graven in the stone of the 
second rock-room of the tomb, and Neferhotep had left 
a plot of ground in trust to the Necropolis, with the 
charge of administering its revenues for the payment of 
a minstrel, who every year at the feast of the dead should 
sing the monody to the accompaniment of his lute.* 

The charioteer well knew this dirge for his ancestor, 
and had often sUng it to Nefert, who had accompanied 
him on her lute; for in their hours of joy also — nay es- 
pecially — the Egyptians were wont to remember their 
dead. 

» The tomb cf Neferhotep is well preserved^ and in it the (pscription front 
vliich this monody ts translated. 


6o 


UARDA. 


Now the three companions listened to the minstrel 
as he sang: 


"Now the great man is at rest. 

Gone to practise sweeter duties. 

Those that die are the elect 
Since the Gods have left the earth. 
Old men pass and young men come ; 
Yea, a new Sun rises daily 
When the old sun has found rest 
In the bosom of the night. 

Hail, O Prophet ! on this feast day 
Odorous balsams, fragrant resins 
Here we bring — and offer garlands. 
Throwing flowers down before thee. 
And before thy much-loved sister. 
Who has found her rest beside thee. 

Songs we sing, and strike the lyre 
To thy memory, and thine honor. 

All our cares are now forgotten, 

Joy and hope our breasts are filling ; 
For the day of our departure 
Now draws near, and in the silence 
Of the farther shore is rest.” 


When the song ceased, several peojde pressed into 
the little oratory to express their gratitude to the de- 
ceased prophet by laying a few flowers on -his altar. 
Nefert and Rameri also went in, and when Nefert had 
offered a long and silent prayer to the glorified spirits 
of her dead, that they might watch over Mena, she laid 
her garland beside the grave in which her husband’s 
mother rested. 

Many members of the court circle passed close to 
the royal party without recognizing them; they made 
every effort to reach the scene of the festival, but the 
crowd was so great that the ladies had several times to 
get into a tomb to avoid it. In each they found the 
altar loaded with offerings, and, in most, family-parties, 
who here remembered their dead, with meat and fruits, 


UARDA. 


6l 


beer and wine, as though they were departed travellers 
who had found some far off rest, and whom they hoped 
sooner or later to see again. 

The sun was near setting when at last the princess 
and her companions reached the spot where the feast 
was being held. Here stood numbers of stalls and 
booths, with eatables of every sort, particularly sweet 
cakes for the children, dates, figs, pomegranates, and other 
fruits. Under light awnings, which kept off the sun, were 
sold sandals and kerchiefs of every material and hue, 
ornaments, amulets, fans, and sun-shades, sweet essences 
of every kind, and other gifts for offerings or for the 
toilet. The baskets of the gardeners and flower-girls 
were already empty, but the money-changers were full 
of business, and the tavern and gambling booths were 
driving a brisk trade. 

Friends and acquaintances greeted each other kindly, 
while the children showed each other their new sandals^ 
the cakes they had won at the games, or the little 
copper rings they had had given to them, and which 
must now be laid out. The largest crowd was gathered 
to see the magicians from the House of Seti, round 
which the mob squatted on the ground in a compact 
circle, and the children were good-naturedly placed in 
the front row. 

When Bent-Anat reached the place all the religious 
solemnity was ended. 

There stood the canopy under which the king and 
his family were used to listen to the festal discourse, 
and under its shade sat to-day the Regent Ani. They 
could see too the seats of the grandees, and the barriers 
which kept the people at a distance from the Regent, 
the priests, and the nobles. 


62 


UARDA. 


Here Ameni himself had announced to the multi- 
tude the miracle of the sacred heart, and had pro- 
claimed that a new Apis had been found among the 
herds of the Regent Ani. 

His announcement of these divine tokens had been 
repeated from mouth to mouth; they were omens of 
peace and happiness for the country through the means 
of a favorite of the Gods ; and though no one said it, 
the dullest could not fail to see that this favorite was 
none other than Ani, the descendant of the great Ha- 
tasu, whose prophet had been graced by the transfer to 
him of the heart of the sacred ram. All eyes were 
fixed on Ani, who had sacrificed before all the people 
to the sacred heart, and received the high-priest’s 
blessing. 

Pentaur, too, had ended his discourse when Bent- 
Ahat reached the scene of the festival. She heard an 
old man say to his son : 

“ Life is hard. It often seems to me like a heavy 
burden laid on our poor backs by the cruel Gods ; but 
when I heard the young priest from the House of Seti, 
I felt that, after all, the Immortals are good, and we 
have much to thank them for.” 

In another place a priest’s wife said to her son : 

“ Could you see Pentaur well, Hor-Uza ? He is of 
humble birth, but he stands above the greatest in 
genius and gifts, and will rise to high things.” 

Two girls were speaking together, and one said to 
the other: 

“ The speaker is the handsomest man I ever saw, 
and his voice sounds like soft music.” 

“ And how his eyes shone when he spoke of truth 


UARDA. 63 

as the highest of all virtues !” replied the other. “ All 
the Gods, I believe, must dwell in him.” 

Bent-Anat colored as these words fell on her ear. 
It was growing dark, and she wished to return home ; 
but Rameri wished to follow the procession as it 
marched through the western valley by torch-light, so 
that the grave of his grandfather Seti should also be 
visited. The princess unwillingly yielded, but it would 
in any case have been difficult to reach the river while 
every one was rushing in the opposite direction; so 
the two ladies, and Rameri, let themselves be carried 
along by the crowd, and by the time the daylight was 
gone, they found themselves in the western valley, 
where to-night no beasts of prey dared show them- 
selves; jackals and hyaenas had fled before the glare 
of the torches, and the lanterns made of colored 
papyrus. 

The smoke of the torches mingled with the dust 
stirred by a thousand feet, and the procession moved 
along, as it were, in a cloud, which also shrouded the 
multitude that followed. 

The three companions had labored on as far as 
the hovel of the paraschites Pinem, but here they were 
forced to pause, for guards drove back the crowd to 
the right and left with long staves, to clear a passage 
for the procession as it approached. 

“ See, Rameri,” said Bent-Anat, pointing out the 
little yard of the hut which stood only a few paces 
from them. “ That is where the fair, white girl lives, 
whom I ran over. But she is much better. Turn 
round ; there, behind the thorn-hedge, by the little fire 
which shines full in your face — there she sits, with her 
grandfather.” 


64 


UARDA. 


The prince stood on tip-toe, looked into the humble 
plot of ground, and then said in a subdued voice: 

“ What a lovely creature ! But what is she doing 
with the old man ? He seems to be praying, and 
she first holds a handkerchief before his mouth, 
and then rubs his temples. And how unhappy she 
looks !” 

“ The paraschites must be ill,” replied Bent-Anat. 

“He must have had too much wine down at the 
feast,” said Rameri laughing. “No doubt of it! Only 
look how his lips tremble, and his eyes roll. It is 
hideous — he looks like one possessed.”* 

“He is unclean tool” said Nefert. 

“ But he is a good, kind man, with a tender 
heart,” exclaimed the princess eagerly. “ I have en- 
quired about him. He is honest and sober, and I am 
sure he is ill and not drunk.” 

“ Now she is standing up,” said Rameri, and he 
dropped the paper-lantern which he had bought at a 
booth. “ Step back, Bent-Anat, she must be expecting 
some one. Did you ever see any one so very fair, 
and with such a pretty little head. Even her red hair 
becomes her wonderfully ; but she staggers as she 
stands — she must be very weak. Now she has sat down 
again by the old man, and is rubbing his forehead. 
Poor souls I look how she is sobbing. I will throw my 
purse over to them.” ^ 

“No, no!” exclaimed Bent-Anat. “I gave them 
plenty of money, and the tears which are shed there 

* It was thought that the insane were possessed by demons. A stele ad- 
mirably treated by E. de Roug6 exists at Paris, which relates that the sister-in 
law of Rameses XII., who was possessed by devils, had them driven out by the 
statue of Chunsu, which was sent to lier in Asia. 


UARDA. 


^>•5 

cannot be staunched with gold. I will send old Asnath 
over to-morrow to ask how we can help them. Look, 
here comes the procession, Nefert. How rudely the 
people press ! As soon as the God is gone by we will 
go home.” 

“ Pray do,” said Nefert. “ I am so frightened !” and 
she pressed trembling to the side of the princess. 

“ I wish we were at home, too,” replied Bent- 
Anat. 

“ Only look !” said Rameri. “ There they are. Is 
it not splendid ? And how the heart shines, as if it 
were a star !” 

All the crowd, and with them our three friends, 
fell on their knees. 

The procession paused opposite to them, as it did 
at every thousand paces ; a herald came forward, and 
glorified, in a loud voice, the great miracle, to which 
now another was. added — the sacred heart since the 
night had come on had begun to give out light. 

Since his return home from the embalming house, 
the paraschites had taken no nourishment, and had 
not answered a word to the anxious questions of the 
two frightened women. He stared blindly, muttered 
a few unintelligible words, and often clasped his fore- 
head in his hand. A few hours before he had laughed 
loud and suddenly, and his wife, greatly alarmed, had 
gone at once to fetch the physician Nebsecht. 

During her absence Uarda was to rub her grand- 
father’s temples with the leaves which the witch Hekt 
had laid on her bruises, for as they had once proved 
efficacious they might perhaps a second time scare 
away the demon of sickness. 


66 


UARDA. 


When the procession, with its thousand lamps and 
torches, paused before the hovel, which was almost 
invisible in the dusk, and one citizen said to another : 
“ Here comes the sacred heart !” the old man started, 
and stood up. His eyes stared fixedly at the gleaming 
relic in its crystal case; slowly, trembling in every 
limb, and with outstretched neck he stood up. 

The herald began his eulogy of the miracle. 

Then, while all the people were prostrate in 
adoration, listening motionless to the loud voice of the 
speaker, the paraschites rushed out of his gate, striking 
his forehead with his fists, and opposite the sacred 
heart, he broke out into a mad, loud fit of scornful 
laughter, which re-echoed from the bare cliffs that 
closed in the valley. 

Horror fell on the crowd, who rose timidly from 
their knees. 

Ameni, who was close behind the heart, started 
too, and looked round on the author of this hideous 
laugh. He had never seen the paraschites, but he per- 
ceived the glimmer of his little fire through the dust 
and gloom, and he knew that he lived in this place. 
The whole case struck him at once ; he whispered a few 
significant words to one of the officers who marched 
with the troops on each side of the procession ; then 
he gave the signal, and the procession moved on as if 
nothing had happened. 

The old man tried with still more loud and crazy 
laughter to reach and seize the heart, but the crowd 
kept him back ; and while the last groups passed on 
after the priests, he contrived to slip back as far as 
the door of his hovel, though much damaged and hurt. 


UARDA. 


67 


There he fell, and Uarda rushed out and threw her- 
self over the old man, who lay on the earth, scarcely 
recognizable in the dust and darkness. 

“ Crush the scoffer !” 

‘‘ Tear him in pieces !” 

“ Burn down the foul den !” 

“ Throw him and the wench into the fire !” shouted 
the people who had been disturbed in their devotions, 
with wild fury. 

Two old women snatched the lanterns frorri the 
posts, and flung them at the unfortunate creatures, 
while an Ethiopian soldier seized Uarda by the hair, 
and tore her away from her grandfather. 

At this moment Pinem’s wife appeared, and with 
her Pentaur. She had found not Nebsecht, but Pen- 
taur, who had returned to the temple after his speech. 
She had told him of the demon who had fallen upon 
her husband, and implored him to come with her. 
Pentaur immediately followed her in his working dress, 
just as he was, without putting on the white priest’s 
robe, which he did not wish to wear on this expedition. 

When they drew near to the paraschites’ hovel, he 
perceived the tumult among the people, and, loud 
above all the noise, heard Uarda’s shrill cry of terror. 
He hurried forward, and in the dull light of the 
scattered fire-brands and colored lanterns, he saw the 
black hand of the soldier clutching the hair of the 
helpless child ; quick as thought he gripped the soldier’s 
throat with his iron fingers, seized him round the body, 
swung him in the air, and flung him like a block of 
stone right into the little yard of the hut. 

The people threw themselves on the champion in 
a frenzy of rage, but he felt a sudden warlike impulse 


68 


UARDA. 


surging up in him, which he had never felt before. 
With one wrench he pulled out the heavy wooden 
pole, which supported the awning which the old para- 
schites had put up for his sick grandchild ; he swung 
it round his head, as if it were a reed, driving back 
the crowd, while he called to Uarda to keep close to 
him. 

“ He who touches the child is a dead man !” he 
cried. “ Shame on you ! — falling on a feeble old man 
and a helpless child in the middle of a holy festival !” 

For a moment the crowd was silent, but imme- 
diately after rushed forward with fresh impetus, and 
wilder than ever rose the shouts of : 

“ Tear him to pieces ! burn his house down !” 

A few artisans from Thebes closed round the 
poet, who was not recognizable as a priest. He, how- 
ever, wielding his tent-pole, felled them before they 
could reach him with their fists or cudgels, and down 
went every man on whom it fell. But the struggle 
could not last long, for some of his assailants sprang 
over the fence, and attacked him in the rear. And 
now Pentaur was distinctly visible against a background 
of flaring light, for some fire-brands had fallen on the 
dry palm-thatch of the hovel behind him, and roaring 
flames rose up to the dark heavens. 

The poet heard the threatening blaze behind him. 
He put his left hand round the head of the trembling 
girl, who crouched beside him, and feeling that now 
they both were lost, but that to his latest breath he 
must protect the innocence and life of this frail crea- 
ture, with his right hand he once more desperately 
swung the heavy stake. 

But it was for the last time ; for two men sue- 


UARDA. 


69 


ceeded in clutching the weapon, others came to their 
support, and wrenched it from his hand, while the 
mob closed upon him, furious but unarmed, and not 
without great fear of the enormous strength of their 
opponent. 

Uarda clung to her protector with shortened breath, 
and trembling like a hunted antelope. Pentaur groaned 
when he felt himself disarmed, but at that instant a 
youth stood by his side, as if he had sprung from the 
earth, who put into his hand the sword of the fallen 
soldier — who lay near his feet — and who then, leaning 
his back against Pentaur’s, faced the foe on the other 
side. Pentaur pulled himself together, sent out a 
battle-cry like some fighting hero who is defending 
his last stronghold, and brandished his new weapon. 
He stood with flaming eyes, like a lion at bay, and 
for a moment the enemy gave way, for his young ally, 
Rameri, had taken a hatchet, and held it up in a 
threatening manner. 

“The cowardly murderers are flinging fire-brands,’’ 
cried the prince. “ Come here, girl, and I will put out 
the pitch on your dress.” 

He seized Uarda’s hand, drew her to him, and 
hastily put out the flame, while Pentaur protected them 
with his sword. 

The prince and the poet stood thus back to back 
for a few moments, when a stone struck Pentaur’s 
head; he staggered, and the crowd were rushing upon 
him, when the little fence was torn away by a deter- 
mined hand, a tall womanly form appeared on the 
scene of combat, and cried to the astonished mob: 

“Have done with this! I command you! I am 
Bent-Anat, the daughter of Rameses.” 


76 


uarda. 


The angry crowd gave way in sheer astonishment. 

Pentaur had recovered from the stunning blow, but 
he thought he must be under some illusion. He felt 
as if he must throw himself on his knees before Bent- 
Anat, but his mind had been trained under Ameni to 
rapid reflection; he realized, in a flash of thought, the 
princess’s position, and instead of bowing before her 
he exclaimed: 

“Whoever this woman may be, good folks, she is 
not Bent-Anat the princess, but I, though I have no 
white robe on, am a priest of Seti, named Pentaur, and 
the Cherheb of to-day’s festival. Leave this spot, wo- 
man, I command you, in right of my sacred office.” 

And Bent-Anat obeyed. 

Pentaur was saved; for just as the people began 
to recover from their astonishment — just as those whom 
he had hurt were once more inciting the mob to fight 
— just as a boy, whose hand he had crushed, was 
crying out: “He is not a priest, he is a sword’s-man. 
Down with the liar!” — 

A voice from the crowd exclaimed: 

“ Make way for my white robe, and leave the preacher 
Pentaur alone, he is my friend. You most of you know 
me.” 

“You are Nebsecht the leech, who set my broken 
leg,” cried a sailor. 

“And cured my bad eye,” said a weaver. 

“ That tall handsome man is Pentaur, I know him 
well,” cried the girl, whose opinion had been overheard 
by Bent-Anat. 

“Preacher this, preacher that!” shouted the boy, 
and he would have rushed forward, but the people 
held him back, and divided respectfully at Nebsecht’s 


ljfAkE>A. ^ t 

command to make way for him to get at those who 
had been hurt. 

First he stooped over the old paraschites. 

“Shame upon you!” he exclaimed. “You have 
killed the old man.” 

“And I,” said Pentaur, “Have dipped my peaceful 
hand in blood to save his innocent and suffering grand- 
child from a like fate.” 

“Scorpions, vipers, venomous reptiles, scum of 
men!” shrieked Nebsecht, and he sprang wildly for- 
ward, seeking Uarda. When he saw her sitting safe 
at the feet of old Hekt, who had made her way into 
the courtyard, he drew a deep breath of relief, and 
turned his attention to the wounded. 

“Did you knock down all that are lying here?” he 
whispered to his friend. 

Pentaur nodded assent ^nd smiled; but not in 
triumph, rather in shame; like a boy, who has uninten- 
tionally squeezed to death in his hand a bird he has 
caught. 

Nebsecht looked round astonished and anxious. 

“ Why did you not say who you were ?” he asked. 

“Because the spirit of the God Menth possessed 
me,” answered Pentaur. “ When I saw that accursed 
villain there with his hand in the girl’s hair, I heard 
and saw nothing, I- — ” 

“You did right,” interrupted Nebsecht. “But 
where will all this end ? ” 

At this moment a flourish of trumpets rang through 
the little valley. The officer sent by Ameni to ap- 
prehend the paraschites came up with his soldiers. 

Before he entered the court-yard he ordered the 
crowd to disperse; the refractory were driven away by 


7 ^ 


UARDA. 


force, and in a few minutes the valley was cleared of 
the howling and shouting mob, and the burning house 
was surrounded by soldiers. Bent-Anat, Rameri, and 
Nefert were obliged to quit their places by the fence; 
Rameri, so soon as he saw that Uarda was safe, had 
rejoined his sister. 

Nefert was almost fainting with fear and excite- 
ment. The two servants, who had kept near them, knit 
their hands together, and thus carried her in advance 
of the princess. Not one of them spoke a word, not 
even Rameri, who could not forget Uarda, and the 
look of gratitude she had sent after him. Once only 
Bent-Anat said: 

“The hovel is burnt down. Where will the poor 
souls sleep to-night ? ” 

When the valley was clear, the officer entered the 
yard, and found there, besides Uarda and the witch 
Hekt, the poet, and Nebsecht, who was engaged in 
tending the wounded. 

Pentaur shortly narrated the affair to the captain, 
and named himself to him. 

The soldier offered him his hand. 

“ If there were many men in Rameses’ army,” said 
he, “who could strike such a blow as you, the war 
with the Cheta would soon be ^t an end. But you 
have struck down, not Asiatics, but citizens of Thebes, 
and, much as I regret it, I must take you as a prisoner 
to Ameni.” 

“You only do your duty,” replied Pentaur, bowing 
to the captain, who ordered his men to take up the 
body of the paraschites, and to bear it to the temple 
of Seti. 


UARDA. 73 

I ought to take the girl in charge too,” he 
added,- turning to Pentaur. 

“ She is ill,” replied the poet. 

“And if she does not get some rest,” added Neb 
secht, “ she will be dead. Leave her alone ; she is 
under the particular protection of the princess Bent- 
Anat, who ran over her not long ago.” 

“ I will take her into my house,” said Hekt, “ and 
will take care of her. Her grandmother is lying there; 
she was half choked by the flames, but she will soon 
come to herself — and I have room for both.” 

“Till to-morrow,” replied the surgeon. “Then I 
will provide another shelter for her.” 

The old woman laughed and muttered: “There 
are plenty of folks to take care of her, it seems.” 

The soldiers obeyed the command of their leader, 
took up the wounded, and went away with Pentaur, 
and the body of Pinem. 

Meanwhile, Bent-Anat and her party had with 
much difficulty reached the river-bank. One of the 
bearers was sent to find the boat which was waiting 
for them, and he w'as enjoined to make haste, for 
already they could see the approach of the procession, 
which escorted the God on his return journey. If they 
could not succeed in finding their boat without delay, 
they must wait at least an hour, for, at night, not a 
boat that did not belong to the train of Amon- — not 
even the barge of a noble — might venture from shore 
till the whole procession was safe across. 

They awaited the messenger’s signal in the greatest 
anxiety, for Nefert was perfectly exhausted, and Bent- 
27 


74 UARDA. 

Anat, on whom she leaned, felt her trembling in every 
limb. 

At last the bearer gave the signal ; the swift, almost 
invisible bark, which was generally used for wild fowl 
shooting, shot by — Rameri seized one end of an oar 
that the rower held out to him, and drew the little 
boat up to the landing-place. 

The captain of the watch passed at the same mo- 
ment, and shouting out, “ This is the last boat that can 
put off before the passage of the God !” 

Bent-Anat descended the steps as quickly as 
Nefert’s exhausted state permitted. The landing-place 
was now only dimly lighted by dull lanterns, though, 
when the God embarked, it would be as light as day 
with cressets and torches. Before she could reach 
the bottom step, with Nefert still clinging heavily to her 
arm, a hard hand was laid on her shoulder, and the 
rough voice of Paaker exclaimed : 

“ Stand back, you rabble ! We are going first.” 

The captain of the watch did not stop him, for he 
knew the chief pioneer and his overbearing ways. 
Paaker put his finger to his lips, and gave a shrill 
whistle that sounded like a yell in the silence. 

The stroke of oars responded to the call, and 
Paaker called out to his boatmen : 

“ Bring the boat up here ! these people can wait !” 

The pioneer’s boat was larger and better manned 
than that of the princess. 

“Jump into the boat!” cried Rameri. 

Bent-Anat went forward without speaking, for she 
did not wish to make herself known again for the sake 
of the people, and for Nefert’s; but Paaker put himself 
in her way. 


UARDA. 


75 


Did I not tell you that you common people must 
wait till we are gone. Push these people’s boat out 
into the stream, you men.” 

Bent-Anat felt her blood chill, for a loud squabble 
at once began on the landing-steps. 

Rameri’s voice sounded louder than all the rest; 
but the pioneer exclaimed : 

“ The low brutes dare to resist ? I will teach them 
manners ! Here, Descher, look after the woman and 
these boys!” 

At his call his great red hound barked and sprang 
forward, which, as it had belonged to his father, always 
accompanied him when he went with his mother to 
visit the ancestral tomb. Nefert shrieked with fright, 
but the dog at once knew her, and crouched against 
her with whines of recognition. 

Paaker, who had gone down to his boat, turned 
round in astonishment, and saw his dog fawning at the 
feet of a boy whom he could not possibly recognize as 
Nefert; he sprang back, and cried out: 

“ I will teach you, you young scoundrel, to spoil my 
dog with spells — or poison!” 

He raised his whip, and struck it across the shoul- 
ders of Nefert, who, with one scream of terror and 
anguish, fell to the ground. 

The lash of the whip only whistled close by the 
cheek of the poor fainting woman, for Bent-Anat had 
seized Paaker’s arm with all her might. 

Rage, disgust, and scorn stopped her utterance; but 
Rameri had heard Nefert’s shriek, and in two steps 
stood by the women. 

“Cowardly scoundrel!” he cried, and lifted the oar 


76 


UARDA. 


in his hand. Paaker evaded the blow, and called to 
the dog with a peculiar hiss : 

“ Pull him down, Descher.” 

The hound flew at the prince; but Rameri, who 
from his childhood, had been his father’s companion in 
many hunts and field sports, gave the furious brute 
such a mighty blow on the muzzle that he rolled over 
with a snort. 

Paaker believed that he possessed in the whole 
world no more faithful friend than this dog, his com- 
panion on all his marches across desert tracts or 
through the enemy’s country, and when he saw him lie 
writhing on the ground his rage knew no bounds, and 
he flew at the youngster wfith his whip; but Rameri — 
madly excited by all the events of the night, full of 
the warlike spirit of his fathers, worked up to the 
highest pitch by the insults to the two ladies, and see- 
ing that he was their only protector — suddenly felt 
himself endowed with the strength of a man ; he dealt 
the pioneer such a heavy blow on the left hand, that 
he dropped his whip, and now seized the dagger in his 
girdle with his right. 

Bent-Anat threw herself between the man and the 
stripling, who was hardly more than a boy, once more 
declared her name, and this time her brother’s also, 
and commanded Paaker to make peace among the boat- 
men. Then she led Nefert, who remained unrecog- 
nized, into the boat, entered it herself with her com- 
panions, and shortly after landed at the palace, while 
Paaker’s mother, for whom he had called his boat, had 
yet a long time to wait before it could start. Setchem 
had seen the struggle from her litter at the top of the 


UARDA. 


77 


landing steps, but without understanding its origin, and 
without recognizing the chief actors. 

The dog was dead. Paaker’s hand was very pain- 
ful, and fresh rage was seething in his soul. 

“That brood of Rameses!” he muttered. “Adven- 
turers! They shall learn to know me. Mena and 
Rameses are closely connected — I will sacrifice them 
both.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

At last the pioneer’s boat got off with his mother 
and the body of the dog, which he intended to send to 
be embalmed at Kynopolis,* the city in which the dog 
was held sacred above all animals; Paaker himself re- 
turned to the House of Seti, where, in the night which 
closed the feast day, there was always a grand banquet 
for the superior priests of the Necropolis and of the 
temples of eastern Thebes, for the representatives of 
other foundations, and for select dignitaries of the 
state. 

His father had never failed to attend this enter- 
tainment when he was in Thebes, but he himself had 
to-day for the first time received the much-coveted 
honor of an invitation, which — Ameni told him when 
he gave it — he entirely owed to the Regent. 

His mother had tied up his hand, which Rameri 

* KynopoHs, or in old Egyptian Saka, is now Samalut : Anubis was the chief 
divinity worshipped there. Plutarch relates a quarrel between the inhabitants 
of this city, and the neighboring one of Oxyrynchos, where the fish called 
Oxy^nchos was worshipped. It began because the Kynopolitans eat the fish, 
and in revenge the Oxyrynchites caught and killed dogs, and consumed them 
in sacrifices. Juvenal relates a similar story of the Ombites — perhaps Koptites 
— ^and Tentyrites in the 15th Satire, 


78 


UARDA. 


had severely hurt; it was extremely painful, but he 
would not have missed the banquet at any cost, al- 
though he felt some alarm of the solemn ceremony. 
His family was as old as any in Egypt, his blood 
purer than the king’s, and nevertheless he never felt 
thoroughly at home in the company of superior people. 
He was no priest, although a scribe; he was a warrior, 
and yet he did not rank with royal heroes. 

He had been brought up to a strict fulfilment of 
his duty, and he devoted himself zealously to his 
calling; but his habits of life were widely different 
from those of the society in which he had been 
brought up — a society of which his handsome, brave, 
and magnanimous father had been a chief ornament. 
He did not cling covetously to his inherited wealth, 
and the noble attribute of liberality was not strange to 
him, but the coarseness of his nature showed itself 
most when he was most lavish, for he was never tired 
of exacting gratitude from those whom he had attached 
to him by his gifts, and he thought he had earned the 
right by his liberality to meet the recipient with rough- 
ness or arrogance, according to his humor. Thus it 
happened that his best actions procured him not 
friends but enemies. 

Paaker’s was, in fact, an ignoble, that is to say, a 
selfish nature; to shorten his road he trod down flowers 
as readily as he marched over the sand of the desert. 
This characteristic marked him in all things, even in 
his outward demeanor; in the sound of his voice, in 
his broad features, in the swaggering gait of his stumpy 
figure. 

In camp he could conduct himself as he pleased, 
but this was not permissible in the society of his equals 


UARDA. 


79 


in rank; for this reason, and because those faculties of 
quick remark and repartee, which distinguished them, 
had been denied to him, he felt uneasy and out of his 
element when he mixed with them, and he would hardly 
have accepted Ameni’s invitation, if it had not so 
greatly flattered his vanity. 

It was already late; but the banquet did not begin 
till midnight, for the guests, before it began, assisted at 
the play which was performed by lamp and torch -light 
on* the sacred lake in the south of the Necropolis, and 
which represented the history of Isis and Osiris. 

When he entered the decorated hall in which the ta- 
bles were prepared, he found all the guests assembled. 
The Regent Ani was present, and sat on Ameni’s right 
at the top of the centre high-table at which several places 
were unoccupied; for the prophets and the initiated of 
the temple of Amon had excused themselves from being 
present. They were faithful to Rameses and his house; 
their grey-haired Superior disapproved of Ameni’s severity 
towards the prince and princess, and they regarded the 
miracle of the sacred heart as a malicious trick of the chiefs 
of the Necropolis against the great temple of the capital* 
for which Rameses had always shown a preference. 

The pioneer went up to the table, where sat the gen- 
eral of the troops that had just returned victorious from 
Ethiopia, and several other offlcers of high rank, There 
was a place vacant next to the general. Paaker fixed 

* Almost all the kings of the new empire provided for the temple of Karnak 
with lavish generosity. The oldest name preserved in it is that of Usertesen I. 
I2lh dynasty. During the reigns of the Hyksos work on it ceased, but the 
monarchs of the i8th and 19th dynasties enlarged it to vast dimensions. The 
vast hall, whose foundations were laid by Rameses I, was built by Seti 1 , and 
adorned by Rameses 11 . It contained 134 columns and was 102:51 metres large. 
I'he temple of Luxor, connected with that of Kamak, and whose foundations had 
been laid during the 18th dynasty, Rameses also completed. He added new 
portions to the eastern side of Kamak, and vast were the royal gifts that flowed 
into the treasuries of this sanctuary. Admirable ground plans of all parts of the 
temple of Kamak have been recently published by Mariette in his Kamak. 


8o 


UARDA. 


his eyes upon this, but when he observed that the officer 
signed to the one next to him to come a little nearer, the 
pioneer imagined that each would endeavor to avoid 
having him for his neighbor, and with an angry glance 
he turned his back on the table where the warriors sat. 

The Mohar was not, in fact, a welcome boon-com- 
panion. “The wine turns sour when .that churl looks 
at it,” said the general. 

The eyes of all the guests turned on Paaker, who 
looked round for a seat, and when no one beckonbd 
him to one he felt his blood begin to boil. He would 
have liked to leave the banqueting hall at once with a 
swingeing curse. He had indeed turned towards the 
door, when the Regent, who had exchanged a few whis- 
pered words with Ameni, called to him, requested him 
to take the place that had been reserved for him, and 
pointed to the seat by his side, which had in fact been 
intended for the high-priest of the temple of Am on. 

Paaker bowed low, and took the place of honor, 
hardly daring to look round the table, lest he should 
encounter looks of surprise or of mockery. And yet he 
had pictured to himself his grandfather Assa, and his 
father, as somewhere near this place of honor, which had 
actually often enough been given up to them. And 
was he not their descendant and heir? Was not his 
mother Setchem of royal race ? Was not the temple of 
Seti more indebted to him than to any one ? 

A servant laid a garland of flowers round his 
shoulders, and another handed him wine and food. Then 
he raised his eyes, and met the bright and sparkling glance 
of Gagabu; he looked quickly down again at the table. 

Then the Regent spoke to him, and turning to the 
other guests mentioned that Paaker was on the point of 


UARDA. 


8l 


Starting next day for Syria, and resuming his arduous 
labors as Mohar. It seemed to Paaker that the Regent 
was excusing himself for having given him so high a 
place of honor. 

Presently Ani raised his wine-cup, and drank to the 
happy issue of his reconnoitring-expedition, and a victo- 
rious conclusion to every struggle in which the Mohar 
might engage. The high-priest then pledged him, and 
thanked him emphatically in the name of the brethren 
of the temple, for the noble tract of arable land which 
he had that morning given them as a votive offering.*‘ A 
murmur of approbation ran round the tables, and 
Paaker’s timidity began to diminish. 

He had kept the wrappings that his mother liad 
applied round his still aching hand. 

“Are you wounded?” asked the Regent. 

“ Nothing of importance,” answered the pioneer. “ I 
was helping my mother into the boat, and it happened — ” 

“It happened,” interrupted an old school-fellow of 
the Mohar’s, who himself held a high appointment as 
officer of the city- watch of Thebes — “ It happened that 
an oar or a stake fell on his fingers.” 

“Is it possible!” cried the Regent. 

“And quite a youngster laid hands on him,” con- 
tinued the officer. “My people told me every detail. 
First the boy killed his dog — ” 

“That noble Descher?” asked the master of the hunt 
in a tone of regret. “Your father was often by my side 
with that dog at a boar-hunt.” 

Paaker bowed his head; but the officer of the watch, 

* Gifts of arable land to the temples by the kings were very customary, 
thousands of monuments have preserved the records of such occurrences; but 
we^thy private individuals not only bestowed tracts of land upon the sanctuaries, 
but gave money for their aggrandizement. 


UARDA. 


»2 

secure in his position and dignity, and taking no notice 
of the glow of anger which flushed Paaker’s face, began 
again : 

“When the hound lay on the ground, the foolhardy 
boy struck your dagger out of your hand.” 

“And did this squabble lead to any disturbance?” 
asked Ameni earnestly. 

“No,” replied the officer. “The feast has passed off 
to-day with unusual quiet. If the unlucky interruption 
to the procession by that crazy paraschites had not oc- 
curred, we should have nothing but praise for the popu- 
lace. Besides the fighting priest, whom we have handed 
over to you, only a few thieves have been apprehended, 
and they belong exclusively to the caste,* so we simply 
take their booty from them, and let them go. But say, 
Paaker, what devil of amiability took possession of you 
down by the river, that you let the rascal escape un- 
punished.” 

“ Did you do that ?” exclaimed Gagabu. “ Revenge 
is usually your ” 

Ameni threw so warning a glance at the old man, 
that he suddenly broke off, and then asked the pioneer: 

“ How did the struggle begin, and who was the 
fellow?” 

“Some insolent people,” said Paaker, “wanted to 
push in front of the boat that was waiting for my mother, 
and I asserted my rights. The rascal fell upon me, and 

* According to Diodorous (I. Sol there was a cast of thieves in Thebes. All 
citizens were obliged to enter their names in a register, and state where they lived, 
and the thieves did the same. The names were enrolled by the “ chief of the 
thieves,” and all stolen goods had to be given up to him. The person robbed had 
to give a written description of the object he had lost, and a declaration as to when 
and where he had lost it. The stolen property was then easily recovered, and re- 
stored to the owner on the payment of one fourth of its value, which was given to 
the thief. A similar state of things existed at Cairo within a comparatively short 
time. 


UARDA. 


83 


killed my dog and — ^by my Osirian father! — the croco- 
diles would long since have eaten him if a woman had 
not come between us, and made herself known to me 
as Bent-Anat, the daughter of Rameses. It was she 
herself, and the rascal was the young prince Rameri, 
who was yesterday forbidden this temple.” 

“Oho!” cried the old master of the hunt. “Oho! 
my lord! Is this the way to speak of the children of 
the king?” 

Others of the company who were attached to 
Pharaoh’s family expressed their indignation; but Ameni 
whispered to Paakar — “Say no morel” then he con- 
tinued aloud: 

“You never were careful in weighing your words, 
my friend, and now, as it seems to me, you are speak- 
ing in the heat of fever. Come here, Gagabu, and 
examine Paaker’s wound, which is no disgrace to him 
— for it was inflicted by a prince.” 

The old man loosened the bandage from the 
pioneer’s swollen hand. 

“That was a bad blow,” he exclaimed; “three 
fingers are broken, and — do you see ? — the emerald too 
in your signet ring.” 

Paaker looked down at his aching fingers, and 
uttered a sigh of relief, for it was not the oracular ring 
with the name of Thotmes III, but the valuable one 
given to his father by the reigning king that had been* 
crushed. Only a few solitary fragments of the splintered 
stone remained in the setting; the king’s name had 
fallen to pieces, and disappeared. Paaker’s bloodless 
lips moved silently, and an inner voice cried out to him : 
“The Gods point out the way! The name is gone, the 
bearer of the name must follow.” 


84 


UARDA. 


“It is a pity about the ring,” said Gagabii, “And 
if the hand is not to follow it — ^luckily it is your left 
hand — ^leave off drinking, let yourself be taken to Neb- 
secht the surgeon, and get him to set the joints neatly, 
and bind them up.” 

Paaker rose, and went away after Ameni had ap- 
pointed to meet him on the following day at the Tem- 
ple of Seti, and the Regent at the palace. 

When the door had closed behind him, the treasurer 
of the temple said: 

“This has been a bad day for the Mohar, and per- 
haps it will teach him that here in Thebes he cannot 
swagger as he does in the field. Another adventure 
occurred to him to-day; would you like to hear it?” 

“Yes; tell it!” cried the guests. 

“You all knew old Seni,” began the treasurer. “ He 
was a rich man, but he gave away all his goods to the 
poor, after his seven blooming sons, one after another, 
had died in the war, or of illness. He only kept a small 
house with a little garden, and said that as the Gods had 
taken his children to themselves in the other world he 
would take pity on the forlorn in this. ‘ Feed the hungry, 
give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked’ says the law; 
and now that Seni has nothing more to give away, he 
goes through the city, as you know, hungry and thirsty 
himself, and scarcely clothed, and begging for his adopted 
, children, the poor. We have all given to him, for we all 
know for whom he humbles himself, and holds out his 
hand. To-day he went round with his little bag, and 
begged, with his kind good eyes, for alms. Paaker has 
given us a good piece of arable land, and thinks, perhaps 
with reason, that he has done his part. When Seni ad- 
dressed him, he told him to go; but the old man did not 


UARDA. 


8S 


give up asking him, he followed him persistently to the 
grave of his father, and a great many people with him. 
Then the pioneer pushed him angrily back, and when 
at last the beggar clutched his garment, he raised his 
whip, and struck him two or three times, crying out: 
‘There — that is your portion!’ The good old man bore 
it quite patiently, while he untied the bag, and said with 
tears in his eyes : ‘ My portion — yes — but not the por- 
tion of the poor 1’ 

“ I was standing near, and I saw how Paaker hastily 
withdrew into the tomb, and how his mother Setchem 
threw her full purse to Seni. Others followed her ex- 
ample, and the old man never had a richer harvest. 
The poor may thank the Mohar ! A crowd of people 
collected in front of the tomb, and he would have fared 
badly if it had not been for the police guard who drove 
them away.” 

During this narrative, which was heard with much 
approval — for no one is more secure of his result than 
he who can tell of the downfall of a man who is disliked 
for his arrogance — the Regent and the high-priest had 
been eagerly whispering to each other. 

“There can be no doubt,” said Ameni, “that Bent- 
Anat did actually come to the festival.” 

“And had also dealings with the priest whom you 
so warmly defend,” whispered the other. 

“ Pentaur shall be questioned this very night,” 
returned the high-priest. “The dishes will soon be 
taken away, and the drinking will begin. Let us go 
and hear what the poet says.” 

“ But there are now no witnesses,” replied Ani. 

“We do not need them,” said Ameni. “He is in- 
capable of a lie.” 


86 


UARDA. 


“Let us go then,” said the Regent smiling, “for I 
am really curious about this white negro, and how he 
will come to terms with the truth. You have forgotten 
that there is a woman in the case.” 

“That there always is !” answered Ameni; he called 
Gagabu to him, gave him his seat, begged him to keep 
up the flow of cheerful conversation, to encourage the 
guests to drink, and to interrupt all talk of the king, the 
state, or the war. 

“You know,” he concluded, “that we are not by our- 
selves this evening. Wine has, before this, betrayed 
everything! Remember this — the mother of foresight 
looks backwards!” 

Ani clapped his hand on the old man’s shoulder. 

“There will be a space cleared to-night m your wine- 
lofts. It is said of you that you cannot bear to see either 
a full glass or an empty one; to-night give your aversion 
to both free play. And when you think it is the right 
moment, give a sign to my steward, who is sitting ther^* 
in the comer. He has a few jars of the best liquor from 
Byblos,* that he brought over with him, and he will bring 
it to you. I will come in again and bid you good-nighb” 

Ameni was accustomed to leave the hall at the be- 
ginning of the drinking. 

When the door was closed behind him and his 
companion, when fresh rose-garlands had been brought 
for the necks of the company, when lotos-blossoms deco- 
rated their heads, and the beakers were refilled, a choir 
of musicians came in, who played on harps, lutes, flutes, 
and small drums. The conductor beat the time by clap- 
ping his hands, and when the music had raised the spir- 

* Gebal-Byblos in Phcenicia. A very famous wine was grown there, much 
appreciated by the Greeks. 


UARDA. 


3 ; 


its of the drinkers, they seconded his efforts by rhyth- 
mical clappings. The jolly old Gagabu kept up his 
character as a stout drinker, and leader of the feast. 

The most priestly countenances soon beamed with 
cheerfulness, and the officers and courtiers outdid each 
other in audacious jokes. Then the old man signed to 
a young temple-servant, who wore a costly wreath; he 
came forward with a small gilt image of a mummy, car- 
ried it round the circle and cried; 

“Look at this; be merry and drink so long as you 
are on earth, for soon you must be like this.”* 

Gagabu gave another signal, and the Regent’s stew- 
ard brought in the wine from Byblos. Ani was much 
lauded for the wonderful choiceness of the liquor. 

“Such wine,” exclaimed the usually grave chief of 
the pastophori, “ is like soap.”** 

“What a simile!” cried Gagabu. “You must ex- 
plain it.’' 

“ It cleanses the soul of sorrow,” answered the other. 

“ Good, friend !” they all exclaimed. “Now every 

* A custom mentioned by Herodotus. Lucian saw such an image brought 
in at a feast. The Greeks adopted the idea, but beautified it, using a winged 
Genius of death instead of a mummy. The Romans also had their “ larva.” 

** This comparison is genuinely Eastern. Kisra called wine ” the soap of 
sorrow.” The Mohammedans, to whom wine is forbidden, have praised it like 
the guests of the House of Seti. Thus Abdelmalik ibn Salih Haschim'i says : 
“ The best thing the world enjoys is wine.” Gahiz says : “ When wine enters thy 
bones and flows through thy limbs it bestows truth of feeling, and perfects the 
soul ; it removes sorrow, elevates the mood, etc., etc.” yTien Ibn 'Aischah was 
told that some one drank no wine, he said : “ He has thrice disowned the world.” 
Ibn el Mu'tazz sang: 

” Heed not time, how it may linger, or how swiftly take its flight. 

Wail thy sorrows only to the wine before thee gleaming bright. 

But when thrice thou’st drained the beaker watch and ward keep o’er thy heart 
Lest the foam of joy should vanish, and thy soul with anguish smart. 

This for every earthly trouble is a sovereign remedy. 

Therefore listen to my counsel, knowing what mil profit thee. 

Heed not time, for ah, how many a man has longed in pain 
Tale of eyil days to lighten — and found all his longing vain.*’* 

* Translated by Mary J. Safford. 


88 . 


UARDA. 


one in turn shall praise the noble juice in some 
worthy saying.” 

“ You begin — the chief prophet of the temple of 
Amenophis.” 

“ Sorrow is a poison,” said the priest, “ and wine is 
the antidote.” 

“ Well said ! — go on ; it is your turn, my lord privy 
councillor.” 

“ Every thing has its secret spring,” said the official, 
“ and wine is the secret of joy.” 

“ Now you, my lord keeper of the seal.” 

“ Wine seals the door on discontent, and locks the 
gates on sorrow.” 

“ That it does, that it certainly does f — Now the 
governor of Hermothis, the oldest of all the company.” 

“Wine ripens especially for us old folks, and not 
for you young people.” 

“That you must explain,” cried a voice from the 
table of the military officers. 

“It makes young men of the old,” laughed the 
octogenarian, “ and children of the young.” 

“ He has you there, you youngsters,” cried Gagabu. 
“ What have you to say, Septah ?” 

“Wine is a poison,” said the morose haruspex, 
“ for it makes fools of wise men.” 

“ Then you have little to fear from it, alas !” said 
Gagabu laughing. “ Proceed, my lord of the chase.” 

“ The rim of the beaker,” was the answer, “ is like 
the lip of the woman you love. Touch it, and taste it, 
and it is as good as the kiss of a bride.” 

“ General — the turn is yours.” 

“ I wish the Nile ran with such wine instead of 
with water,” cried the soldier, “ and that I were as big 


UARDA. 


89 


as the colossus of Ainenophis, and that the biggest 
obelisk of Hatasu* were my drinking vessel, and that I 
might drink as much as I would ! But now — what have 
you to say of this noble liquor, excellent Gagabu?” 

The second prophet raised his beaker, and gazed 
lovingly at the golden fluid; he tasted it slowly, and 
then said with his eyes turned to heaven : 

“ I only fear that I am unworthy to thank the Gods 
for such a divine blessing.” 

“Well said!” exclaimed the Regent Ani, who had 
re-entered the room unobserved. “If my wine could 
speak, it would thank you for such a speech.” 

“Hail to the Regent Ani!” shouted the guests, and 
they all rose with their cups filled with his noble 
present. 

He pledged them and then rose. 

“Those,” said he, “who have appreciated this 
wine, I now invite to dine with me to-morrow. You 
will then meet with it again, and if you still find it to 
your liking, you will be heartily welcome any evening. 
Now, good night, friends.” 

A thunder of applause followed him, as he quitted 
the room. 

The morning was already grey, when the carousing- 
party broke up; few of the guests could find their way 
unassisted through the courtyard; most of them had 
already been carried away by the slaves, who had 
waited for them — and who took them on their heads, 
like bales of goods — and had been borne home in their 
litters; but for those who remained to the end, couches 

* This obelisk is still standing at Karnak, and is 33 metres high. That 
which was taken to Paris from Luqsor, and which stands on the Place de la 
Concorde, is 1 1 metres less. 

28 


90 


UARDA, 


were prepared in the House of Seti, for a terrific storm 
was now raging. 

While the company were filling and refilling the 
beakers, which raised their spirits to so wild a pitch, 
the prisoner Pentaur had been examined in the pre- 
sence of the Regent. Ameni’s messenger had found 
the poet on his knees, so absorbed in meditation that 
he did not perceive his approach. All his peace of 
mind had deserted him, his soul was in a tumult, and 
he could not succeed in obtaining any calm and clear 
control over the new life-pulses which were throbbing 
in his heart. 

He had hitherto never gone to rest at night with- 
out requiring of himself an account of the past day, 
and he had always been able to detect the most subtle 
line that divided right from wrong in his actions. But 
to-night he looked back on a perplexing confusion of 
ideas and events, and when he endeavored to sort 
them and arrange them, he could see nothing clearly 
but the image of Bent-Anat, which enthralled his heart 
and intellect. 

He had raised his hand against his fellow-men, and 
dipped it in blood; he desired to convince himself of 
his sin, and to repent — but he could not; for each 
time he recalled it, to blame and condemn himself, he 
saw the soldier’s hand twisted in Uarda’s hair, and the 
princess’s eyes beaming with approbation, nay with ad- 
miration, and he said to himself that he had acted 
rightly, and in the same position w^ould do the same 
again to-morrow'. Still he felt that he had broken 
through all the conditions with which fate had sur- 


UARDA. 


91 

rounded his existence, and it seemed to him that he 
could never succeed in recovering the still, narrow, but 
peaceful life of the past. 

His soul went up in prayer to the Almighty One, 
and to the spirit of the sweet humble woman whom 
he had called his mother, imploring for peace of mind 
and modest content; but in vain — for the longer he 
remained prostrate, flinging up his arms in passionate 
entreaty, the keener grew his longings, the less he felt 
able to repent or to recognize his guilt. Ameni’s order 
to appear before him came almost as a deliverance, 
and he followed the messenger prepared for a severe 
punishment; but not afraid — almost joyful. 

In obedience to the command of the grave high- 
priest, Pentaur related the whole occurrence — how, as 
there was no leech in the house, he had gone with the 
old wife of the paraschites to visit her possessed hus- 
band; how, to save the unhappy girl from ill-usage by 
the mob, he had raised his hand in fight, and dealt 
indeed some heavy blows. 

^‘You have killed four men,” said Ameni, “and 
severely wounded twice as many. Why did you not 
reveal yourself as a priest, as the speaker of the morn- 
ing’s discourse? Why did you not endeavor to persuade 
the people with words of warning, rather than with 
brute force ?” 

“ I had no priest’s garment,” replied Pentaur. 

“There again you did wrong,” said Ameni, “for 
you know that the law requires of each of us never to 
leave this house without our white robes. But you 
cannot pretend not to know your own powers of speech, 
nor to contradict me when I assert that, even in the 


92 


UARDA. 


plainest working-dress, you were perfectly able to pror 
duce as much effect with words as by deadly blows ! ” 

“I might very likely have succeeded,” answered 
Pentaur, “ but the most savage temper ruled the crowd ; 
there was no time for reflection, and when I struck 
down the villain, like some reptile, who had seized the 
innocent girl, the lust of fighting took possession of me. 
I cared no more for my own life, and to save the 
child I would have slain thousands.” 

“Your eyes sparkle,” said Ameni, “as if you had 
performed some heroic feat; and yet the men you killed 
were only unarmed and pious citizens, who were roused 
to indignation by a gross and shameless outrage. I 
cannot conceive whence the warrior-spirit should have 
fallen on a gardener’s son — and a minister of the 
Gods.” 

“It is true,” answered Pentaur, “when the crowd 
rushed upon me, and I drove them back, putting out 
all my strength, I felt something of the warlike rage of 
the soldier, who repulses the pressing foe from the 
standard committed to his charge. It was sinful in a 
priest, no doubt, and I will repent of it — ^but I felt it.” 

“You felt it — and you will repent of it, well and 
good,” replied Ameni. “But you have not given a 
true account of all that happened. Why have you con- 
cealed that Bent-Anat — Rameses’ daughter — was mixed 
up in the fray, and that she saved you by announcing 
her name to the people, and commanding them to leave 
you alone? When you gave her the lie before all the 
people, was it because you did not believe that it was 
Bent-Anat? Now, you who stand so firmly on so high 
a platform — now you standard-bearer of the truth- 
answer me.” 


UARDA. 93 

Pentanr had turned pale at his master's words, and 
said, as he looked at the Regent : 

“ We are not alone.” 

“ Truth is one !” said Ameni coolly. “ What you 
can reveal to me, can also be heard by this noble lord, 
the Regent of the king himself. Did you recognize 
Bent-Anat, or not ?” 

“ The lady who rescued me was like her, and yet 
unlike,” answered the poet, Avhose blood was roused 
by the subtle irony of his Superior’s words. “ And if 
I had been as sure that she was the princess, as I am 
that you are the man who once held me in honor, 
and who are now trying to humiliate me, I would all 
the more have acted as I did to spare a lady who is 
more like a goddess than a woman, and who, to save 
an unworthy wretch like me, stooped from a throne 
to the dust.” 

“ Still the poet — the preacher !” said Ameni. Then 
he added severely. “ I beg for a short and clear an- 
swer. We know for certain that the princess took part 
in the festival in the disguise of a woman of low rank, 
for she again declared herself to Paaker ; and we know 
that it was she who saved you. But did you know 
that she meant to come across the Nile ?” 

“ How should I ?” asked Pentaur. 

“ Well, did you believe that it was Bent-Anat whom 
you saw before you when she ventured on to the scene 
of conflict ?” 

“ I did believe it,” replied Pentaur ; he shuddered 
and cast down his eyes. 

“Then it was most audacious to drive away the 
king’s daughter as an impostor.” 

“ It was,” said Pentaur. “ But for my sake she had 


94 


UARDA. 


risked the honor of her name, and that of her royal 
father, and I — I should not have risked my life and 
freedom for — ” 

“ We have heard enough,” interrupted Ameni. 

“ Not so,” the Regent interposed. “What became 
of the girl you had saved ?” 

“An old witch, Hekt by name, a neighbor of 
Pinem’s, took her and her grandmother into her cave,” 
answered the poet ; who was then, by the high-priest’s 
order, taken back to the temple-prison. 

Scarcely had he disappeared when the Regent ex- 
claimed : 

“ A dangerous man ! an enthusiast ! an ardent wor- 
shipper of Rameses!” 

“ And of his daughter,” laughed Ameni, “ but only 
a worshipper. Thou hast nothing to fear from him — I 
will answer for the purity of his motives.” 

“ But he is handsome and of powerful speech,” re- 
plied Ani. “ I claim him as my prisoner, for he has 
killed one of my soldiers.” 

Ameni’s countenance darkened, and he answered 
very sternly : 

“It is the exclusive right of our conclave, as estab- 
lished by our charter, to judge any member of this 
fraternity. You, the future king, have freely promised 
to secure our privileges to us, the champions of your 
own ancient and sacred rights.” 

“ And you shall have them,” answered the Regent 
with a persuasive smile. “ But this man is dangerous, 
and you would not have him go unpunished.” 

“ He shall be severely judged,” said Ameni, “ but 
by uS and in this house.” 


UARDA. 95 

He has committed murder !” cried Ani. “ More 
than one murder. He is worthy of death.” 

He acted under pressure of necessity,” replied 
Ameni. “ And a man so favored by the Gods as he, is 
not to be lightly given up because an untimely impulse 
of generosity prompted him to rash conduct. I know 
— I can see that you wish him ill. Promise me, as 
you value me as an ally, that you will not attempt his 
life.” 

“ Oh, willingly !” smiled the Regent, giving the high- 
priest his hand. 

“ Accept my sincere thanks,” said Ameni. “ Pentaur 
was the most promising of my disciples, and in spite 
of many aberrations I still esteem him highly. When 
he was telling us of what had occurred to-day, did he 
not remind you of the great Assa, or of his gallant 
son, the Osirian father of the pioneer Paaker ?” 

“ The likeness is extraordinary,” answered Ani, 
and yet he is of quite humble birth. Who was his 
mother ?” 

“ Our gate-keeper’s daughter, a plain, pious, simple 
creature.” 

“Now I will return to the banqueting hall,” said 
Ani, after a few moments of reflection. “ But I must 
ask you one thing more. I spoke to you of a secret 
that will put Paaker into our power. The old sorceress 
Hekt, who has taken charge of the paraschites’ wife 
and grandchild, knows all about it. Send some police- 
guards over there, and let her be brought over here as 
a prisoner; I will examine her myself, and so can 
question her without exciting observation.” 

Ameni at once sent ofl* a party of soldiers, and then 
quietly ordered a faithful attendant to light up the so 


V 


96 


UARDA. 


called audience-chamber, and to put a seat for him in 
an adjoining room. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

While the banquet was going forward at the temple, 
and Ameni’s messengers were on their why to the 
valley of the kings’ tombs, to waken up old Hekt, a 
furious storm of hot wind came up from the south- 
west, sweeping black clouds across the sky, and brown 
clouds of dust across the earth. It bowed the slender 
palm-trees as an archer bends his bow, tore the tent- 
pegs up on the scene of the festival, whirled the light 
tent-cloths up in the air, drove them like white witches 
through the dark night, and thrashed the still surface 
of the Nile till its yellow waters swirled and tossed in 
waives like a restless sea. 

Paaker had compelled his trembling slaves to row 
him across the stream; several times the boat was 
near being swamped, but he had seized the helm him- 
self with his uninjured hand, and guided it firmly and 
surely, though the rocking of the boat kept his broken 
hand in great and constant pain. After a few in- 
effectual attempts he succeeded in landing. The storm 
had blown out the lanterns at the masts — the signal 
lights for which his people looked — and he found 
neither servants nor torch-bearers on the bank, so he 
struggled through the scorching wind as far as the 
gate of his house. His big dog had always been 
wont to announce his return home to the door-keeper 
with joyful barking; but to-night the boatmen long 
knocked in vain at the heavy do^^r. When at last he 


UARDA. 


97 


entered the court-yard, he found all dark, for the wind 
had extinguished the lanterns and torches, and there 
were no lights but in the windows of his mother’s 
rooms. 

The dogs in their open kennels now began to 
make themselves heard, but their tones were plaintive 
and whining, for the storm had frightened the beasts; 
their howling cut the pioneer to the heart, for it re- 
minded him of the poor slain Descher, whose deep 
voice he sadly missed; and when he went into his own 
room he was met by a wild cry of lamentation from the 
Ethiopian slave, for the dog which he had trained for 
Paaker’s father, and which he had loved. 

The pioneer threw himself on a seat, and ordered 
some water to be brought, that he might cool his aching 
hand in it, according to the prescription of Nebsecht. 

As soon as the old man saw the broken fingers, he 
gave another yell of woe, and when Paaker ordered 
him to cease he asked : 

“And is the man still alive who did that, and who 
killed Descher?” 

Paaker nodded, and while he held his hand in the 
cooling water he looked sullenly at the ground. He 
felt miserable, and he asked himself why the storm 
had not swamped the boat, and the Nile had not 
swallowed him. Bitterness and rage filled his breast, 
and he wished he were a child, and might cry. But 
his mood soon changed, his breath came quickly, his 
breast heaved, and an ominous light glowed in his 
eyes. He was not thinking of his love, but of the 
revenge that was even dearer to him. 

“That brood of Raineses!” he muttered. “I will 
sweep them all away together — the king, and Mena, 


98 


UARDA. 


and those haughty princes, and many more — I know 
how. Only wait, only wait 1” and he flung up his right 
fist with a threatening gesture. 

The door opened at this instant, and his mother en- 
tered the room; the raging of the storm had drowned 
the sound of her steps, and as she approached her re- 
vengeful son, she called his name in horror at the mad 
wrath which was depicted in his countenance. Paaker 
started, and then said with apparent composure: 

“Is it you, mother? It is near morning, and it is 
better to be asleep than awake in such an hour.” 

“ I could not rest in my rooms,” answered Setchem. 
“The storm howled so wildly, and I am so anxious, so 
frightfully unhappy — as I was before your father died.” 

“Then stay with me,” said Paaker affectionately, 
“and lie down on my couch.” 

“ I did not come here to sleep,” replied Setchem. 
“ I am too unhappy at all that happened to you on the 
landing-steps, it is frightful! No, no, my son, it is not 
about your smashed hand, though it grieves me to see 
you in pain ; it is about the king, and his anger when he 
hears of the quarrel. He favors you less than he did 
your lost father, I know it well. But how wildly you 
smile, how wild you looked when I came in ! It went 
through my bones and marrow.” 

Both were silent for a time, and listened to the 
furious raging of the storm. At last Setchem spoke. 

“ There is something else,” she said, “ which disturbs 
my mind. I cannot forget the poet who spoke at the 
festival to-day, young Pentaur. His figure, his face, his 
movements, nay his very voice, are exactly like those of 
your father at the time when he was young, and courted 
me. It is as if the Gods were fain to see the best man 


UARDA. 


99 


that they ever took to themselves, walk before them a 
second time upon earth.” 

“Yes, my lady,” said the black slave; “no mortal 
eye ever saw' such a likeness. I saw him fighting in front 
of the paraschites’ cottage, and he was more like my 
dead master than ever. He swung the tent-post over 
his head, as my lord used to swung his battle-axe.” 

“Be silent,” cried Paaker, “and get out — idiot! 
The priest is like my father; I grant it, mother; but 
he is an insolent fellow, who offended me grossly, and 
with whom I have to reckon — as with many others.” 

“How violent you are!” interrupted his mother, 
“and how full of bitterness and hatred. Your father 
was so sweet-tempered, and kind to everybody.” 

“Perhaps they are kind to me?” retorted Paaker 
with a short laugh. “ Even the Immortals spite me, and 
throw thorns in my path. But I will push them aside 
with my own hand, and will attain w'hat I desire without 
the help of the Gods and overthrow all that oppose me.” 

“We cannot blow away a feather without the help 
of the Immortals,” answered Setchem. “ So your father 
used to say, who was a very different man both in body 
and mind from you! I tremble before you this evening, 
and at the curses you have uttered against the children 
of your lord and sovereign, your father’s best friend.” 

“ But my enemy,” shouted Paaker. “You will get 
nothing from me but curses. And the brood of Ra- 
meses shall learn whether your husband’s son will let 
himself be ill-used and scorned without revenging him- 
self. I will fling them into an abyss, and I will laugh 
when I see them writhing in the sand at my feet!” 

“Fool!” cried Setchem, beside herself. “I am but 
a woman, and have often blamed myself for being soft 


lOO 


UARDA. 


and weak; but as sure as I am faithful to your dead 
father — whom you are no more like than a bramble is 
like a palm-tree — so surely will I tear my love for you 
out of my heart if you — if you — Now I see! now I 
know! Answer me — murderer! Where are the seven 
arrows with the Avicked words which used to hang* 
here ? Where are the arrows on which you had 
scrawled ‘Death to Mena?’” 

With these words Setchem breathlessly started for- 
ward, but the pioneer drew back as she confronted him, 
as in his youthful days when she threatened to punish 
him for some misdemeanor. She followed him up, 
caught him by the girdle, and in a hoarse voice re- 
peated her question. He stood still, snatched her hand 
angrily from his belt, and said defiantly: 

“ I have put them in my quiver — and not for mere 
play. Now you know.” 

Incapable of words, the maddened woman once 
more raised her hand against her degenerate son, but he 
put back her arm. 

“I am no longer a child,” he said, “and I am 
master of this house. I will do what I will, if a hun- 
dred women hindered me!” and with these words he 
pointed to the door. Setchem broke into loud sobs, 
and turned her back upon him; but at the door once 
more she turned to look at him. He had seated him- 
self, and was resting his forehead on the table on which 
the bowl of cold water stood. 

Setchem fought a hard battle. At last once more 
through her choking tears she called his name, opened 
her arms wide and exclaimed: 

“Here I am — here I am! Come to my heart, only 
give up these hideous thoughts of revenge.” 


UARDA. 


101 


But Paaker did not move, he did not look up at 
her, he did not speak, he only shook his head in nega- 
tion. Setchem’s hands fell, and she said softly: 

“What did your father teach you out of the scrip- 
tures? ‘Your highest praise consists in this, to reward 
your mother for what she has done for you, in bringing 
you up, so that she may not raise her hands to God, 
nor He hear her lamentation.’ ”* 

At these words, Paaker sobbed aloud, but he did 
not look at his mother. She called him tenderly by 
his name; then her eyes fell on his quiver, which lay 
on a bench with other arms. Her heart shrunk within 
her, and with a trembling voice she exclaimed: 

“ I forbid this mad vengeance — do you hear ? Will 
you give it up ? You do not move ? No! you will not ! 
Ye Gods, what can I do?” 

She wrung her hands in despair; then she hastily 
crossed the room, snatched out one of the arrowy, and 
strove to break it. Paaker sprang from his seat, and 
wrenched the weapon from her hand; the sharp point 
slightly scratched the skin, and dark drops of blood 
flowed from it, and dropped upon the floor. 

The Mohar would have taken the wounded hand, 
for Setchem, who had the weakness of never being able 
to see blood flow — neither her own nor anybody’s else 
— had turned as pale as death; but she pushed him 
from her, and as she spoke her gentle voice had a dull 
estranged tone. 

“ This hand,” she said — “ a mother’s hand wounded 
by her son — shall never again grasp yours till you have 
sworn a solemn oath to put away from you all thoughts 

* From Papyrus IV. containing moral precepts, preserved at Bulaq, Mari- 
ette edition. 


10 ^ 


UARDA. 


of revenge and murder, and not to disgrace your father's 
name. I have said it, and may his glorified spirit be 
my witness, and give me strength to keep my word!" 

Paaker had fallen on his knees, and was engaged in 
a terrible mental struggle, while his mother slowly went 
towards the door. There again she stood still for a 
moment ; she did not speak, but her eyes appealed to 
him once more. 

In vain. At last she left the room, and the wind 
slammed the door violently behind her. Paaker 
groaned, and pressed his hand over his eyes. 

“ Mother, mother !” he cried. “ I cannot go back — 
I cannot.” 

A fearful gust of wind howled round the house, and 
drowned his voice, and then he heard two tremendous 
claps, as if rocks had been hurled from heaven. He 
started up and went to the window, where the melan< 
choly grey dawn was showing, in order to call the 
slaves. Soon they came trooping out, and the steward 
called out as soon as he saw him : 

“ The storm has blown down the masts at the great 
gate 1” 

“ Impossible !” cried Paaker. 

“Yes, indeed!” answered the servant. “They have 
been sawn through close to the ground. The mat- 
maker no doubt did it, whose collar-bone was broken. 
He has escaped in this fearful night.” 

“Let out the dogs,” cried the Mohar. “All who 
have legs run after the blackguard! Freedom, and 
five handfuls of gold for the man who brings him 
back.” 


t^ARDA. 


103 

The guests at the House of Seti had already gone 
to rest, when Ameni was informed of the arrival of 
the sorceress, and he at once went into the hall, where 
Ani was waiting to see her; the Regent roused himself 
from a deep reverie when he heard the high-priest’s 
steps. 

“Is she come?” he asked hastily; when Ameni an- 
swered in the affirmative Ani went on — meanwhile 
carefully disentangling the disordered curls of his wig, 
and arranging his broad, collar-shaped necklace: 

“The witch may exercise some influence over me; 
will you not give me your blessing to preserve me from 
her spells ? It is true, I have on me this Horus’-eye, 
and this Isis-charm,* but one never knows — ” 

“ My presence will be your safe-guard,” said Ameni. 
“ But — ^no, of course you wish to speak with her 
alone. You shall be conducted to a room, which is 
protected against all witchcraft by sacred texts. My 
brother,” he continued to one of the serving-priests, 
“let the witch be taken into one of the consecrated 
rooms, and then, when you have sprinkled the 
threshold, lead my lord Ani thither.” 

The high-priest went away, and into a small room 
which adjoined the hall where the interview between 
the Regent and the old woman was about to take 
place, and where the softest whisper spoken in the 
larger room could be heard by means of an ingeniously 
contrived and invisible tube. 

When Ani saw the old woman, he started back in 
horror; her appearance at this moment was, in fact, 

* Amulet in the shape of a knot, usually made of a blood-jasper on which 
was inscribed Chapter 75 or Chapter 76 of the Ritual of the Dead. It is 
called “Blood of Isis,” “Charm of Isis” or “Wisdom (chu) of Isis,” 


1(54 


tjAkDA. 


frightful. The storm had tossed and torn her garments 
and tumbled all her thick, white hair, so that locks of 
it fell over her face. She leaned on a staff, and bend- 
ing far forward looked steadily at the Regent ; and her 
eyes, red and smarting from the sand which the wind 
had flung in her face, seemed to glow as she fixed 
them on his. She looked as a hyaena might when 
creeping to seize its prey, and Ani felt a cold shiver as 
he heard her hoarse voice addressing him to greet him, 
and to represent that he had chosen a strange hour for 
requiring her to speak with him. 

When she had thanked him for his promise of re- 
newing her letter of freedom, and had confirmed the 
statement that Paaker had had a love-philter from her, 
she parted her hair from off her face — it occurred to 
her that she was a woman. 

The Regent sat in an arm-chair, she stood before 
him ; but the struggle with the storm had tired her old 
limbs, and she begged Ani to permit her to be seated, 
as she had a long story to tell, which would put Paaker 
into his power, so that he would find him as yielding 
as wax. The Regent signed her to a corner of the room, 
and she squatted down on the pavement. 

When he desired her to proceed with her story, she 
looked at the floor for some time in silence, and then 
began, as if half to herself : 

“ I will tell thee, that I may find peace — I do not 
want, when I die, to be buried unembalmed. Who knows 
but perhaps strange things may happen in the other 
world, and I would not wish to miss them. I want to 
see him again down there, even if it were in the seventh 
limbo of the damned. Listen to me ! But, before I 
speak, promise me that whatever I tell thee, thou wilt 


UARDA. 105 

leave me in peace, and will see that I am embalmed 
when I am dead. Else I will not speak.” 

Ani bowed consent. 

“ No — no,” she said. “ I will tell thee what to swear : 
‘ If I do not keep my word to Hekt — who gives the 
Mohar into my power — may the Spirits whom she 
rules, annihilate me before I mount the throne.’ Do 
not be vexed, my lord — and say only ‘Yes.’ What I 
can tell, is worth more than a mere word.” 

“Well then — yes!” cried the Regent, eager for the 
mighty revelation. 

The old woman muttered a few unintelligible words; 
then she collected herself, stretched out her lean neck, 
and asked, as she fixed her sparkling eyes on the man 
before her : 

“ Did’st thou ever, when thou wert young, hear of 
the singer Beki ? Well, look at me, I am she.” 

She laughed loud and hoarsely, and drew her 
tattered robe across her bosom, as if half ashamed of 
her unpleasing person. 

“ Ay !” she continued. “ Men find pleasure in grapes 
by treading them down, and when the must is drunk 
the skins are thrown on the dung-hill. Grape-skins, that 
is what I am — but you need not look at me so piti- 
fully ; I was grapes once, and poor and despised as I am 
now, no one can take from me what I have had and 
have been. Mine has been a life out of a thousand, a 
complete life, full to overflowing of joy and suffering, of 
love and hate, of delight, despair, and revenge. Only 
to talk of it raises me to a seat by thy throne there. — 
No, let me be, I am used now to squatting on the 
ground ; but I knew thou wouldst hear me to the end, 
for once I too was one of you. Extremes meet in all 


UARDA. 


io6 

things — I know it by experience. The greatest men will 
hold out a hand to a beautiful woman, and time was 
when I could lead you all as with a rope. Shall I be- 
gin at the beginning ? Well — I seldom am in the mood 
for it now-a-days. Fifty years ago I sang a song with 
this voice of mine ; an old crow like me ? sing ! But so 
it was. My father was a man of rank, the governor of 
Abydos ; when the first Rameses took possession of the 
throne my father was faithful to the house of thy fathers, 
so the new king sent us all to the gold mines, and there 
they all died — my parents, brothers, and sisters. I only 
survived by some miracle. As I was handsome and 
sang well, a music master took me into his band, 
brought me to Thebes, and wherever there was a feast 
given in any great house, Beki was in request. Of 
flowers and money and tender looks I had a plentiful 
harvest ; but I was proud and cold, and the misery of 
my people had made me bitter at an age when usually 
even bad liquor tastes of honey. Not one of all the 
gay young fellows, princes’ sons, and nobles, dared to 
touch my hand. But my hour was to come ; the hand- 
somest and noblest man of them all, and grave and 
dignified too — was Assa, the old Mohar’s father, and 
grandfather of Pentaur — no, I should say of Paaker, the 
pioneer ; thou hast known him. Well, wherever I sang, 
he sat opposite me, and gazed at me, and I could not 
take my eyes off him, and — thou canst tell the rest ! — 
no! Well, no woman before or after me can ever love 
a man as I loved Assa. Why — dost thou not laugh ? It 
must seem odd, too, to hear such a thing from the tooth- 
less mouth of an old witch. He is dead, long since 
dead. I hate him 1 and yet — wild as it sounds — I be- 
lieve I love him yet. And he loved me — for two years ; 


UARBA. 


107 

then he went to the war with Seti, and remained a long 
time away, and when I saw him again he had courted 
the daughter of some rich and noble house. I was 
handsome enough still, but he never looked at me at 
the banquets. I came across him at least twenty times, 
but he avoided me as if I were tainted with leprosy, 
and I began to fret, and fell ill of a fever. The doctors 
said it was all over with me, so I sent him a letter in 
which there was nothing but these words : ‘ Beki is dy- 
ing, and would like to see Assa once more,’ and in the 
papyrus I put his first present — a plain ring. And what 
was the answer ? a handful of gold ! Gold — gold ! Thou 
may’st believe me, when I say that the sight of it was 
more torturing to my eyes than the iron with which they 
put out the eyes of criminals. Even now, when I think 
of it — But what do you men, you lords of rank and 
wealth, know of a breaking heart ? When two or three 
of you happen to meet, and if thou should’st tell the 
story, the most respectable will say in a pompous voice : 
‘ The man acted nobly indeed ; he was married, and his 
wife would have complained with justice if he had gone 
to see the singer.’ Am I right or wrong ? I know ; not 
one will remember that the other was a woman, a feel- 
ing human being ; it will occur to no one that his deed 
on the one hand saved an hour of discomfort, and on 
the other wrought half a century of despair. Assa es- 
caped his wife’s scolding, but a thousand curses have 
fallen on him and on his house. How virtuous he felt 
himself when he had crushed and poisoned a passionate 
heart that had never ceased to love him! Ay, and he 
would have come if he had not still felt some love for 
me, if he had not misdoubted himself, and feared that 
the dying woman might once more light up the fire he 


UARDA. 


io8 

had so carefully smothered and crushed out. I would 
have grieved for him — but that he should send me 
money, money ! — that I have never forgiven ; that he 
shall atone for in his grandchild.” The old woman 
spoke the last words as if in a dream, and without 
seeming to remember her hearer. Ani shuddered, as if 
he were in the presence of a mad woman, and he in- 
voluntarily drew his chair back a little way. 

The witch observed this ; she took breath and went 
on : “You lords, who walk in high places, do not know 
how things go on in the depths beneath you; — you do 
not choose to know. 

“ But I will shorten my story. I got well, but I got 
out of my bed thin and voiceless. I had plenty of 
money, and I spent it in buying of everyone who pro- 
fessed magic in Thebes, potions to recover Assa’s love 
for me, or in paying for spells to be cast on him, or for 
magic drinks to destroy him. I tried too to recover 
my voice, but the medicines I took for it made it rougher 
not sweeter. Then an excommunicated priest, who was 
famous among the magicians, took me into his house, 
and there I learned many things ; his old companions 
afterwards turned upon him, he came over here into 
the Necropolis, and I came with him. When at last he 
was taken and hanged, I remained in his cave, and my- 
self took to witchcraft. Children point their fingers 
at me, honest men and women avoid me, I am an 
abomination to all men, nay to myself. And one only is 
guilty of all this ruin — the noblest gentleman in Thebes 
— the pious Assa. 

“ I had practised magic for several years, and had 
become learned in many arts, when one day the gar- 
dener Sent, from whom I was accustomed to buy plants 


UARDA. 


109 

for my mixtures — he rents a plot of ground from the 
temple of Seti — Sent brought me a new-born child that 
had been born with six toes; I was to remove the su- 
pernumerary toe by my art. The pious mother of the 
child was lying ill of fever, or she never would have 
allowed it ; I took the screaming little wretch — for such 
things are sometimes curable. The next morning, a few 
hours after sunrise, there was a bustle in front of my 
cave; a maid, evidently belonging to a noble house, 
was calling me. Her mistress, she said, had come with 
her to visit the tomb of her fathers, and there had been 
taken ill, and had given birth to a child. Her mistress 
was lying senseless — I must go at once, and help her. 
I took the little six-toed brat in my cloak, told my slave- 
girl to follow me with water, and soon found myself — 
as thou canst guess — at the tomb of Assa’s ancestors. 
The poor woman, who lay there in convulsions, was 
his daughter-in-law Setchem. The baby, a boy, was 
as sound as a nut, but she was evidently in great dan- 
ger. I sent the maid with the litter, which was waiting 
outside, to the temple here for help; the girl said that 
her master, the father of the child, was at the war, 
but that the grandfather, the noble Assa, had promised 
to meet the lady Setchem at the tomb, and would 
shortly be coming; then she disappeared with the litter. 
I washed the child, and kissed it as if it were my own. 
Then I heard distant steps in the valley, and the recol- 
lection of the moment when I, lying at the point of 
death, had received that gift of money from Assa came 
over me, and then — I do not know myself how it 
happened — I gave the new-born grandchild of Assa to 
my slave-girl, and told her to carry it quickly to the 
gave, and I wrapped the little six-toed baby in my rags 


I lO 


UARDA. 


and held it in my lap. There I sat — and the minutes 
seemed hours, till Assa came up; and when he stood 
before me, grown grey, it is true, but still handsome 
and upright — I put the gardener’s boy, the six-toed 
brat, into his very arms, and a thousand demons seemed 
to laugh hoarsely within me. He thanked me, he did 
not know me, and once more he offered me a handful 
of gold. I took it, and I listened as the priest, who had 
come from the temple, prophesied all sorts of fine 
things for the little one, who was born in so fortunate 
an hour; and th^n I went back into my cave, and there 
I laughed till I cried, though I do not know that the 
tears sprang from the laughter. 

“A few days after I gave Assa’s grandchild to the 
gardener, and told him the sixth toe had come off; 
I had made a little wound on his foot to take in the 
bumpkin. So Assa’s grandchild, the son of the Mohar, 
grew up as the gardener’s child, and received the name 
of Pentaur, and he was brought up in the temple here, 
and is wonderfully like Assa; but the gardener’s mon- 
strous brat is the pioneer Paaker. That is the whole 
secret.” 

Ani had listened in silence to the terrible old 
woman. 

We are involuntarily committed to any one who 
can inform us of some absorbing fact, and who knows 
how to make the information valuable. It did not oc- 
cur to the Regent to punish the witch for her crimes; 
he thought rather of his older friends’ rapture when they 
talked of the singer Beki’s songs and beauty. He 
looked at the woman, and a cold shiver ran through 
all his limbs. 

“You may live in peace,” he said at last; “and 


UARDA. 


Ill 


when you die I will see to your being embalmed; but 
give up your black arts. You must be rich, and, if you 
are not, say what you need. Indeed, I scarcely dare 
offer you gold — it excites your hatred, as I under- 
stand.” 

“ I could take thine — but now let me go !” 

She got up, and went towards the door, but the 
Regent called to her to stop, and asked : 

“ Is Assa the father of your son, the little Nemu, 
the dwarf of the lady Katuti ?” 

The witch laughed loudly. “ Is the little wretch 
like Assa or like Beki ? I picked him up like many 
other children.” 

“ But he is clever !” said Ani. 

“ Ay — that he is. He has planned many a shrewd 
stroke, and is devoted to his mistress. He will help 
thee to thy purpose, for he himself has one too.” 

“ And that is — ?” 

“ Katuti will rise to greatness with thee, and to riches 
through Paaker, who sets out to-morrow to make the 
woman he loves a widow.” 

“ You know a great deal,” said Ani meditatively, 
and I would ask you one thing more ; though indeed 
your story has supplied the answer — ^but perhaps you 
know more now than you did in your youth. Is there 
in truth any effectual love-philter ?” 

“ I will not deceive thee, for I desire that thou 
should’st keep thy word to me,” replied Hekt. “ A love 
potion rarely has any effect, and never but on women 
who have never before loved. If it is given to a woman 
whose heart is filled with the image of another man 
her passion for him only will grow the stronger.” 


1 12 


UARDA. 


“ Yet another,” said Ani. “ Is there any way of de- 
stroying an enemy at a distance ?” 

“ Certainly,” said the 'witch. “ Little people may do 
mean things, and great people can let others do things 
that they cannot do themselves. My story has stirred 
thy gall, and it seems to me that thou dost not love 
the poet Pentaur. A smile ! Well then — I have not lost 
sight of him, and I know he is grown up as proud and 
as handsome as Assa. He is wonderfully like him, and 
I could have loved him — have loved as this foolish 
heart had better never have loved. It is strange ! In 
many women, who come to me, I see how their hearts 
cling to the« children of men who have abandoned 
them, and we women are all alike, in most things. But 
I will not let myself love Assa’s grandchild — I must 
not. I will injure him, and help everyone that per- 
secutes him ; for though Assa is dead, the wrongs he did 
me live in me so long as I live myself. Pentaur’s des- 
tiny must go on its course. If thou wilt have his life, 
consult with Nemu, for he hates him too, and he will 
serve thee more effectually than I can with my vain 
spells and silly harmless brews. Now let me go 
home!” 

A few hours later Ameni sent to invite the Regent 
to breakfast. 

“ Do you know who the witch Hekt is ?” asked Ani. 

“ Certainly — ^how should I not know? She is the singer 
Beki — the former enchantress of Thebes. May I ask 
what her communications were ?” 

Ani thought it best not to confide the secret of 
Pentaur’s birth to the high-priest, and answered eva- 
sively. Then Ameni begged to be allowed to give him 


UARDA. 


1^3 

some information about the old woman, and how she 
had had a hand in the game; and he related to his 
hearer, with some omissions and variations — as if it 
were a fact he had long known — the very story which 
a few hours since he had overheard, and learned for 
the first time. Ani feigned great astonishment, and 
agreed with the high -priest that Paaker should not for 
the present be informed of his true origin. 

He is a strangely constituted man,” said Ameni, 
“ and he is not incapable of playing us some unfore- 
seen trick before he has done his part, if he is told 
who he is.” 

The storm had exhausted itself, and the sky, though 
covered still with torn and flying clouds, cleared by 
degrees, as the morning w'ent on ; a sharp coolness 
succeeded the hot blast, but the sun as it mounted 
higher and higher soon heated the air. On the roads 
and in the gardens lay uprooted trees and many slightly- 
built houses which had been blown down, while the 
tents in the strangers’ quarter, and hundreds of light 
palm-thatched roofs, had been swept away. 

The Regent w’as returning to Thebes, and with him 
went Ameni, who desired to ascertain by his own eyes 
what mischief the whirlwind had done to his garden 
in the city. On the Nile they met Paaker’s boat, and 
Ani caused it and his own to be stopped, while he 
requested Paaker to visit him shortly at the palace. 

The high-priest’s garden was in no respect inferior 
in beauty and extent to that of the Mohar. The 
ground had belonged to his family from the remotest 
generations, and his house was large and magnificent. 
He seated himself in a shady arbor, to take a repast 


114 


iJARDA; 


with his still handsome wife and his young and pretty 
daughters. 

He consoled his wife for the various damage done 
by the hurricane, promised the girls to build a new 
and handsomer dove-cot in the place of the one which 
had been blown down, and laughed and joked with them 
all ;, for here the severe head of the House of Seti, the 
grave Superior of the Necropolis, became a simple man, 
an affectionate husband, a tender father, a judicious 
friend, among his children, his flowers, and his birds. 
His youngest daughter clung to his right arm, and an 
older one to his left, when he rose from table to go 
with them to the poultry-yard. 

On the way thither a servant announced to him 
that the Lady Setchem wished to see him. 

“ Take her to your mistress,” he said. 

But the slave — who held in his hand a handsome 
gift in money — explained that the widow wished to 
speak with him alone. 

“ Can I never enjoy an hour’s peace like other men ?” 
exclaimed Ameni annoyed. “ Your mistress can receive 
her, and she can wait with her till I come. It is true, 
girls — ^is it not ? — that I belong to you just now, and 
to the fowls, and ducks, and pigeons ?” 

His youngest daughter kissed him, the second 
patted him affectionately, and they all three went gaily 
forward. An hour later he requested the Lady Setchem 
to accompany him into the garden. 

The poor, anxious, and frightened woman had re- 
solved on this step with much difficulty ; tears filled 
her kind eyes, as she communicated her troubles to 
the high-priest. 

Thou art a wise counsellor,” she said, “ and thou 


UARDA. 


II5 


knowest well how my son honors the Gods of the 
temple of Seti with gifts and offerings. He will not 
listen to his mother, but thou hast influence with him. 
He meditates frightful things, and if he cannot be 
terrified by threats of punishment from the Immortals, 
he will raise his hand against Mena, and perhaps — ” 

“ Against the king,” interrupted Ameni gravely. “ I 
know it, and I will speak to him.” 

“ Thanks, oh a thousand thanks !” cried the widow, 
and she seized the high-priests robe to kiss it. “ It was 
thou who soon after his birth didst tell my husband 
that he was bom under a lucky star, and would grow 
to be an honor and an ornament to his house and 
to his country. And now — now he will ruin himself 
in this world, and the next.” 

“What I foretold of your son,” said Ameni, “shall 
assuredly be fulfilled, for the ways of the Gods are not 
as the ways of men.” 

“Thy words do me good !” cried Setchem. None 
can tell what fearful terror weighed upon my heart, 
when I made up my mind to come here. But thou 
dost not yet know all. The great masts of cedar, which 
Paaker sent from Lebanon to Thebes to bear our ban- 
ners, and ornament our gateway, were thrown to the 
ground at sunrise by the frightful wind.” 

“ Thus shall your son’s defiant spirit be broken,” 
said Ameni ; “ But for you, if you have patience, new 
joys shall arise.” 

“ I thank thee again,” said Setchem. “ But some- 
thing yet remains to be said. I know that I am wast- 
ing the time that thou dost devote to thy family, and 
I remember thy saying once that here in Thebes thou 
wert like a pack-horse with his load taken off, and free 


UARDA. 


Il6 

to wander over a 'green meadow. I will not disturb 
thee much longer — but the Gods sent me such a won- 
derful vision. Paaker would not listen to me, and I 
went back into my room full of sorrow ; and when at 
last, after the sun had risen, I fell asleep for a few 
minutes, I dreamed I saw before me the poet Pentaur, 
who is wonderfully like my dead husband in ap- 
pearance and in voice. Paaker went up to him, and 
abused him violently, and threatened him with his 
fist; the priest raised his arms in prayer, just as I saw 
him yesterday at the festival — but not in devotion, but 
to seize Paaker, and wrestle with him. The struggle 
did not last long, for Paaker seemed to shrink up, and 
lost his human form, and fell at the poet’s feet — not 
my son, but a shapeless lump of clay such as the potter 
uses to make jars of.” 

“ A strange dream !” exclaimed Ameni, not without 
agitation. “ A very strange dream, but it l)odes you 
good. Clay, Setchem, is yielding, and clearly indicates 
that which the Gods prepare for you. The Immortals 
will give you a new and a better son instead of the 
old one, but it is not revealed to me by what means. 
Go now, and sacrifice to the Gods, and trust to the wis- 
dom of those who guide the life of the universe, and 
of all mortal creatures. Yet — I would give you one 
more word of advice. If Paaker comes to you repentant, 
receive him kindly, and let me know ; but if he will 
not yield, close your rooms against him, and let him 
depart without taking leave of you.” 

When Setchem, much encouraged, was gone away, 
Ameni said to himself: 

“ She will find splendid compensation for this coarse 
scoundrel, and she shall not spoil the tool we need to 


UARDA. 


II7 

Strike our blow . I have often doubted how far dreams 
do, indeed, foretell the future, but to-day my faith in 
them is increased. Certainly a mother’s heart sees 
farther than that of any other human being.^^ 

At the door of her house Setchem came up with 
her son’s chariot. They saw each other, but both 
looked away, for they could not meet affectionately, 
and would not meet coldly. As the horses outran the 
litter-bearers, the mother and son looked round at 
each other, their eyes met, and each felt a stab in 
the heart. 

In the evening the pioneer, after he had had an 
interview with the Regent, went to the temple of Seti 
to receive Ameni’s blessing on all his undertakings. 
Then, after sacrificing in the tomb of his ancestors, he 
set out for Syria. 

Just as he was getting into his chariot, news was 
brought him that the mat-maker, who had sawn through 
the masts at the gate, had been caught. 

“ Put out his eyes !” he cried ; and these were the 
last words he spoke as he quitted his home. 

Setchem looked after him for a long time; she had 
refused to bid him farewell, and now she implored the 
Gods to turn his heart, and to preserve him from malice 
and crime. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

Three days had passed since the pioneer’s depar- 
ture, and although it was still early, busy occupation 
was astir in Bent-Anat’s work-rooms. 

The ladies had passed the stormy night, which had 


UARDA. 


1 18 

succeeded the exciting evening of the festival, without 
sleep. 

Nefert felt tired and sleepy the next morning, and 
begged the princess to introduce her to her new duties 
for th6 first time next day ; but the princess spoke to 
her encouragingly, told her that no man should put 
off doing right till the morrow, and urged her to follow 
her into her workshop. 

“We must both come .to different minds,” said she. 
“ I often shudder involuntarily, and feel as if I bore a 
brand — as if I had a stain here on my shoulder where 
it was touched by Paaker’s rough hand.” 

The first day of labor gave Nefert a good many 
difficulties to overcome ; on the second day the work 
she had begun already had a charm for her, and by 
the third she rejoiced in the little results of her care. 

Bent-Anat had put her in the right place, for she 
had the direction of a large number of young girls 
and women, the daughters, wives, and widows of those 
Thebans who were at the war, or who had fallen in 
the field, who sorted and arranged the healing herbs. 

Her helpers sat in little circles on the ground ; in 
the midst of each lay a great heap of fresh and dry 
plants, and in front of each work-woman a number of 
parcels of the selected roots, leaves, and flowers. 

An old physician presided over the whole, and had 
shown Nefert the first day the particular plants which 
he needed. 

The wife of Mena, who was fond of flowers, had 
soon learnt them all, and she taught willingly, for she 
loved children. 

She soon had favorites among the children, and 


UARDA. 


II9 

knew some as being Industrious and careful, others as 
idle and heedless 

“ Ay ! ay !” she exclaimed, bending over a little half- 
naked maiden with great almond-shaped eyes. “ You 
are mixing them all together. Your father, as you tell 
me, is at the war. Suppose, now, an arrow were to 
strike him, and this plant, which would hurt him, were 
laid on the burning wound instead of this other, which 
would do him good — that would be very sad.” 

The child nodded her head, and looked her work 
through again. Nefert turned to a little idler, and said: 
‘‘You are chattering again, and doing nothing, and yet 
your father is in the field. If he were ill now, and has 
no medicine, and if at night when he is asleep he dreams 
of you, and sees you sitting idle, he may say to himself : 

‘ Now I might get well, but my little girl at home does 
not love me, for she would rather sit with her hands in 
her lap than sort herbs for her sick father.’ ” 

Then Nefert turned to a large group of the girls, 
who were sorting plants, and said : “ Do you, children, 
know the origin of all these wholesome, healing herbs ? 
The good Horus went out to fight against Seth, the 
murderer of his father, and the horrible enemy wounded 
Horus in the eye* in the struggle; but the son of 
Osiris conquered, for good always conquers evil. But 
when Isis saw the bad wound, she pressed her son’s 
head to her bosom, and her heart was as sad as that 
of any poor human mother that holds her suffering 
child in her arms. And she thought : ‘ How easy it is 
to give wounds, and how hard it is to heal them !’ and 
so she wept ; one tear after another fell on the earth, 

* According to the “ Book of the Pead,” ?nd Isis also heals the eye of 
Horus. 


120 


UARDA. 


and wherever they wetted the ground there sprang up 
a kindly healing plant.”* 

“ Isis is good !” cried a little girl opposite to her. 
“ Mother says Isis loves children when they are good.” 

Your mother is right,” replied Nefert. “ Isis her- 
self has her dear little son Horus; and every human 
being that dies, and that was good, becomes a child 
again, and the Goddess makes it her own, and takes it 
to her breast, and nurses it with her sister Nephthys** 
till he grows up and can fight for his father.” 

Nefert observed that while she spoke one of the 
women was crying. She went up to her, and learned 
that her husband and her son were both dead, the 
former in Syria, and the latter after his return to Egypt. 

“ Poor soul !” said Nefert. “ Now you will be very 
careful, that the wounds of others may be healed. I 
will tell you something more about Isis. She loved 
her husband Osiris dearly, as you did your dead hus- 
band, and I my husband Mena, but he fell a victim to 
the cunning of Seth, and she could not tell where to 
find the body that had been carried away, while you 
can visit your husband in his grave. Then Isis went 
through the land lamenting, and ah ! what was to be- 
come of Egypt, which received all its fruitfulness from 
Osiris. The sacred Nile was dried up, and not a blade 

' The Egyptians attributed creative power to the blood and the tears of 
the Gods. Lcftbure has treated the subject in “Le Mythe Osirien.” In “the 
praises of Ra,” edited by Naville, the God is addressed as “ Remi,” i. e., the 
weeper ; and in the sentences found with the pictures of the four races of men 
in the tomb of Seti I., at Biban el Muluk, there is a j)assage from which it 
appears that man also sprang from the tears of the God, since he thus addresses 
the people: “ Ye are a tear from mine eyes, Ye who are called Men !’’ 

** As Isis is the mother, so Nephthys is represented as the nurse and teacher 
of Horus. On the island of Phila;, we see one ot the Ptolemies represented as a 
young God, receiving instruction from Nephthys in the art of playing on the harp. 
Osiris loved both goddesses, and both are represented mourning by his bier, one 
at the head and the other at the foot. Their song of lamentation has been pre- 
served on a papynts in the Berlin Museum, treated by de Horrak. 


UARDA. 


I2I 


of verdure was green on its banks. The Goddess 
grieved over this beyond words, and one of her tears 
fell in the bed of the river, and immediately it began 
to rise. You know, of course, that each inundation 
arises from a tear of Isis.* Thus a widow’s sorrow may 
bring blessing to millions of human beings.” 

The woman had listened to her attentively, and 
when Nefert ceased speaking she said : 

“ But I have still three little brats of my son’s to 
feed, for his wife, who was a washerwoman, was 
eaten by a crocodile while she was at work. Poor folks 
must work for themselves, and not for others. If the 
princess did not pay us, I could not think of the 
wounds of the soldiers, who do not belong to me. I 
am no longer strong, and four mouths to fill — ” 

Nefert was shocked — as she often was in the course 
of her new duties — and begged Bent-Anat to raise the 
wages of the woman. 

“ Willingly,” said the princess. “ How could I beat 
down such an assistant. Come now with me into the 
kitchen. I am having some fruit packed for my father 
and brothers; there must be a box for Mena too.” 

Nefert followed her royal friend, found them packing 
in one case the golden dates of the oasis of Amon,** and 
in another the dark dates of Nubia, the king’s favorite sort. 

“ Let me pack them !” cried Nefert ; she made the ser- 
vants empty the box again, and re-arranged the various- 
colored dates in graceful patterns, with other fruits 
preserved in sugar. 


* The old belief that the Nile rises from a divine tear falling into the stream 
is still cherished among the Arabs. Even at the present time the night of the 
nth BaQneh, when the Nile slowly begins to rise, is called the “ Night of the 
Drop." 

** Now called the oasis of Siwah. Its date palms arc still famous for their 


fruit. 


30 


122 


UARDA. 


Ben'-Anat looked on, and ^vhen she had finished 
she took her hand. ‘‘ Whatever your fingers have 
touched,” she exclaimed, “ takes some pretty aspect. 
Give me that scrap of papyrus j I shall put it in the 
case, and write upon it — 

“ ‘ These were packed for king Rameses by his 
daughter’s clever helpmate, the wife of Mena.’ ” 

After the mid-day rest the princess was called away, 
and Nefert remained for some hours alone with the 
work-women. 

When the sun went down, and the busy crowd were 
about to leave, Nefert detained them, and said: “The 
Sun-bark is sinking behind the western hills ; come, let 
us pray together for the king and for those we love in 
the field. Each of you think of her own : you children 
of your fathers, you women of your sons, and we wives 
of our distant husbands, and let us entreat Amon that 
they may return to us as certainly as the sun, which 
now leaves us, will rise again to-moitow morning.” 

Nefert knelt down, and with her the women and the 
children. 

When they rose, a little girl went up to Nefert, and 
said, pulling her dress : “ Thou madest us kneel here 
yesterday, and already my mother is better, because I 
prayed for her.” 

“No doubt,” said Nefert, stroking the child’s black 
hair. 

She found Bent-Anat on the terrace meditatively 
gazing across to the Necropolis, which was fading into 
darkness before her eyes. She started when she heard 
the light footsteps of her friend. 

“ I am disturbing thee,” said Nefert, about to 
retire. 


Uarua. 


123 


*‘No, stay,” said Bent-Anat. ‘*1 thank the Gods 
that I have you, for my heart is sad — pitifully sad.” 

“I know where your thoughts were,” said Nefert softly. 

*‘Well?” asked the princess. 

“With Pentaur.” 

“ I think of him — always of him,” replied the prin- 
i:ess, “and nothing else occupies my heart. I am no 
longer myself. What I think I ought not to think, 
what I feel I ought not to feel, and yet, I cannot com- 
mand it, and I think my heart would bleed to death if 
I tried to cut out those thoughts and feelings. I have 
behaved strangely, nay unbecomingly, and now that 
which is hard to endure is hanging over me, something 
strange — which will perhaps drive you from me back 
to ybur mother.” 

“I will share everything with you,” cried Nefert. 
“What is going to happen? Are you then no longer 
the daughter of Rameses ?” 

“ I showed myself to the people as a woman of the 
people,” answered Bent-Anat, “and I must take the 
consequences. Bek en Chunsu, the high-priest of 
Amon, has been with me, and I have had a long con- 
versation with him. The worthy man is good to me, 
I know, and my father ordered me to follow his advice 
before any one’s. He showed me that I have erred 
deeply. In a state of uncleanness I went into one of 
the temples of the Necropolis, and after I had once 
been into the paraschites’ house and incurred Ameni’s 
displeasure, I did it a second time. They know over 
there all that took place at the festival. Now I must 
undergo purification, either with great solemnity at the 
hands of Ameni himself, before all the priests and 
nobles in the House of Seti, or by performing a pilgrim- 


T24 


UARDA. 


age to the Emerald- Hathor,* under whose influence the 
precious stones are hewn from the rocks, metals dug out, 
and purified by fire. The Goddess shall purge me from 
my uncleanness as metal is purged from the dross. At 
a day’s journey and more from the mines, an abundant 
stream** flows from the holy mountain — Sinai,*** as it 
is called by the Mentuf — and near it stands the sanc- 
tuary of the Goddess, in which priests grant purification. 
The journey is a long one, through the desert, and over 
the sea; But Bek en Chunsu advises me to venture it. 
Ameni, he says, is not amiably disposed towards me, 
because I infringed the ordinance which he values above 
all others. I must submit to double severity, he says, 
because the people look first to those of the highest 
rank; and if I went unpunished for contempt of the 
sacred institutions there might be imitators among the 
crowd. He speaks in the name of the Gods, and they 
measure hearts with an equal measure. The ell-measure 
is the symbol of the Goddess of Truth. ft I feel that it is 
all not unjust; and yet I find it hard to submit to the 
priest’s decree, for I am the daughter of Rameses !” 

* “ Hathor of the Mafkat” was especialljr revered in the peninsula of 
Sinai. Accordin^i to Lepsius’ searching investigation as to the metals of the an- 
cient Egyptians, it is proved that Mafkat is neither copper nor turquoise, but a 
green stone. When the Mafkat is termed “true” or “genuine,” emerald is 
meant ; in other cases Malachite, Chrysoprase, and green glass, which are fre- 
quently found in the tombs. Ornaments of malachite are rare. We may here 
mention an exquisite figure of the God Ptah made of this stone which is pre- 
served in the Japanese palace at Dresden. Monuments which remain at both 
the mining establishments of Sinai, Wadi Maghara, and Sarbut el Chadem, indi- 
cate that Hathor was worshipped there in preference to all other tlivinities. 

** In the modern oasis of Feiran 

*** I believe the gigantic peak now called Serbal, not the Sinai of the monks, 
Is the Sinai mentioned in the I’ible, and have given my reasons for this opinion in 
detail in “ Durch fJosen zum Sinai, aus dem Wanderbuche und der Bibliothek” 

t The mountain tribes of the Sinai peninsula. 

ft I'he name of the Goddess of truth, Ma, was written with the hierogliphic 
which represented the ell-ineasure. Several specimens of the old .sacred ell-mea- 
sure have been preserved. Lepsius has fully treated the subject. Die altegyp- 
tische Elle und ihre Eintheilung. Aus den Abhandlungen der k. Akademie der 
Wissenschaften. Berlin, 1865, page 33. 


UARDA. 


125 


“Aye, indeed!” exclaimed Nefert, “and he is him- 
self a God !” 

“ But he taught me to respect the laws 1” inter- 
rupted the princess. “ I discussed another thing with 
Bek en Chunsu. You know I rejected the suit of the 
Regent. He must secretly be much vexed with me. 
That indeed would not alarm me, but he is the guar- 
dian and protector appointed over me by my father, 
and yet can I turn to him in confidence for counsel, 
and help? No! I am still a woman, and Rameses’ 
daughter ! Sooner will I travel through a thousand 
deserts than humiliate my father through his child. 
By to-morrow I shall have decided; but, indeed, I have 
already decided to make the journey, hard as it is to 
leave much that is here. Do not fear, dear! but you 
are too tender for such a journey, and to such a dis- 
tance ; I might — ” 

“ No, no,” cried Nefert. “ I am going, too, if you 
were going to the four pillars of heaven,* at the limits 
of the earth. You have given me a new life, and the 
little sprout that is green within me would wither 
again if I had to return to my mother. Only she or I 
can be in our house, and I will re-enter it only with 
Mena.” 

“ It is settled — I must go,” said the princess. “Oh! 
if only my father were not so far off, and that I could 
consult him !” 

“ Yes I the war, and always the war !” .sighed Nefert. 
“ Why do not men rest content with what they have, 

* The pillars of heaven are alluded to in various circumstances. On the 
beautiful Stele of Victory of Thotmes 111. at Bulaq it is written, “ I, Amon have 
spread the fear of thee to the four pillars of heaven.” They were supposed 
to stand at the uttermost points of the north, south, east and west, and the 
phra:^ is often used for the four (piarters of the heavens. 


126 


UARDA. 


and prefer the quiet peace, which makes life lovely, 
to idle fame 

“ Would they be men ? should we love them ?” cried 
Bent-Anat eagerly. “ Is not the mind of the Gods, too, 
bent on war ? Did you ever see a more sublime sight 
than Pentaur, on that evening when he brandished the 
stake he had pulled up, and exposed his life to protect 
an innocent girl who was in danger ?” 

“ I dared not once look down into the court,” said 
Nefert. “ I was in such an agony of mind. But his 
loud cry still rings in my ears.” 

“ So rings the war cry of heroes before whom the 
enemy quails !” exclaimed Bent-Anat. 

“ Aye, truly so rings the war cry !” said prince Ra- 
meri, who had entered his sister’s half-dark room un- 
perceived by the two women. 

The princess turned to the boy. “ How you fright- 
ened me !” she said. 

“You!” said Rameri astonished. 

“ Yes, me. I used to have a stout heart, but since 
that evening I frequently tremble, and an agony of 
terror comes over me, I do not know why. I believe 
some demon commands me.” 

“You command, wherever you go; and no one 
commands you,” cried Rameri. “The excitement and 
tumult in the valley, and on the quay, still agitate you. 
I grind my teeth myself when I remember how they 
turned me out of the school, and how Paaker set the 
dog at us. I have gone through a great deal to- 
day too.” 

“ Where were you so long ?” asked Bent-Anat. “ My 
uncle Ani commanded that you should not leave the 
palace.” 


UARDA. 


127 


“I shall be eighteen years old next month,” said 
the prince, “ and need no tutor.” 

“ But your father — ” said Bent-Anat. 

“My father — interrupted the boy, “he little knows 
the Regent. But I shall write to him what I have to- 
day heard said by different people. They were to 
have sworn allegiance to Ani at that very feast in the 
valley, and it is quite openly said that Ani is aiming at 
the throne, and intends to depose the king. You are 
right, it is madness — but there must be something 
behind it all.” 

Nefert turned pale, and Bent-Anat asked for particu- 
lars. The prince repeated all he had gathered, and 
added laughing: “Ani depose my father! It is as if I 
tried to snatch the star of Isis from the sky to light the 
lamps — which are much wanted here.” 

“It is more comfortable in the dark,” said Nefert. 

“No, let us have lights,” said Bent-Anat. “It is 
better to talk when we can see each other face to face. 
I have no belief in the foolish talk of the people ; but 
you are right — we must bring it to my father’s knowl- 
edge.” 

“ I heard the wildest gossip in the City of the 
Dead,” said Rameri. 

“You ventured over there ? How very wrong!” 

“ I disguised myself a little, and I have good news 
for you. Pretty Uarda is much better. She received 
your present, and they have a house of their own 
again. Close to the one that was burnt down, there 
was a tumbled-down hovel, which her father soon put 
together again; he is a bearded soldier, who is as 
much like her as a hedgehog is like a white dove. I 
offered her to work in the palace for you with the 


128 


UARDA. 


other girls, for good wages, but she would not; for she 
has to wait on her sick grandmother, and she is proud, 
and will not serve any one.” 

“It seems you were a long time with the para- 
schites’ people,” said Bent-Anat reprovingly. “ I should 
have thought that what has happened to me might 
have served you as a warning.” 

“ I will not be better than you !” cried the boy. 
“Besides, the paraschites is dead, and Uarda’s father 
is a respectable soldier, who can defile no one. I kept 
a long way from the old woman. To-morrow I am 
going again. I promised her.” 

“ Promised who ?” asked his sister. 

“Who but Uarda? She loves flowers, and since 
the rose which you gave her she has not seen one. I 
have ordered the gardener to cut me a basket full of 
roses to-morrow morning, and shall take them to her 
myself” 

“That you will not!” cried Bent-Anat. “You are 
still but half a child — and, for the girl’s sake too, you 
must give it up.” 

“We only gossip together,” said the prince Color- 
ing, “ and no one shall recognize me. But certainly, 
if you mean that, I will leave the basket of roses, and 
go to her alone. No — sister, I will not be forbidden 
this; she is so charming, so white, so gentle, and her 
voice is so soft and sweet! And she has little feet, 
as small as — what shall I say ? — as small and graceful 
as Nefert’s hand. We talked most about Pentaur. She 
knows his father, who is a gardener, and knows a great 
deal about him. Only think ! she says the poet cannot 
be the son of his parents, but a good spirit that has 
come down on earth — i)erhaps a God. At first she 


TJARDA. 


I 2 g 

was very timid, but when I spoke of Pentaur she grew 
eager; her reverence for him is almost idolatry — and 
that vexed me.” 

“You would rather she should reverence you so,” 
said Nefert smiUng. 

“ Not at all,” cried Rameri. “ But I helped to save 
her, and I am so happy when I am sitting with her, 
that to-morrow, I am resolved, I will put a flower 
in her hair. It is red certainly, but as thick as yours, 
Bent-Anat, and it must be delightful to unfasten it and 
stroke it.” 

The ladies exchanged a glance of intelligence, and 
the princess said decidedly : 

“ You will not go to the City of the Dead to-morrow, 
my little son !”• 

“That we will see, my little mother!” He answered 
laughing; then he turned grave. 

“ 1 saw my school-friend Anana too,” he said. 
“ Injustice reigns in the House of Seti I Pentaur is in 
prison, and yesterday evening they sat in judgment 
upon him. My uncle was present, and would have 
pounced upon the poet, but Ameni took him under 
his protection. What was finally decided, the pupils 
could not learn, but it must have been something bad, 
for the son of the Treasurer heard Ameni saying, after 
the sitting, to old Gagabu : ‘ Punishment he deserves, 
but I will not let him be overwhelmed ;’ and he can 
have meant no one but Pentaur. To-morrow I will go 
over, and learn more ; something frightful, I am afraid 
— several years of imprisonment is the least that will 
happen to him.” 

Bent-Anat had turned very pale. 

<‘And whatever they do to him,” she cried, “he 


130 


UARDA. 


will suffer for my sake ! Oh, ye omnipotent Gods, help 
him — help me, be merciful to us both !” 

She covered her face with her hands, and left the 
room. Rameri asked Nefert : 

“What can have come to my sister? she seems 
quite strange to me ; and you too are not the same as 
you used to be.” 

“We both have to find our way in new circum- 
stances.” 

“ What are they ?” 

“ That I cannot explain to you ! — ^but it appears to 
me that you soon may experience something of the 
same kind. Rameri, do not go again to the para- 
schites.” 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Early on the following day the dwarf Nemu went 
past the restored hut of Uarda’s father — in which he 
had formerly lived with his wife — with a man in a 
long coarse robe, the steward of some noble family. 
They went towards old Hekt’s cave-dwelling. 

“ I would beg thee to wait down here a moment, 
noble lord,” said the dwarf, “ while I announce thee 
to my mother.” 

“ That sounds very grand,” said the other. “ How- 
ever, so be it. But stay ! The old woman is not to 
call me by my name or by my title. She is to call 
me ‘ steward ’ — that no one may know. But, indeed, 
no one would recognize me in this dress.” 

Nemu hastened to the cave, but before he reached 
his mother she called out : “Do not keep my lord 
waiting — I know him well.” 


UARDA. 


13 1 


Nemii laid his finger to his lips. 

You are to call him steward,” said he. 

“ Good,” muttered the old woman. “ The ostrich 
puts his head under his feathers when he does not 
want to be seen.” 

“Was the young prince long with Uarda yester- 
day ?” 

“No, you fool,” laughed the witch, “the children 
play together. Rameri is a kid without horns, but who 
fancies he knows where they ought to grow. Pentaur 
is a more dangerous rival with the red-headed girl. 
Make haste, now; these stewards must not be kept 
waiting !” 

The old woman gave the dwarf a push, and he 
hurried back to Ani, while she carried the child, tied 
to his board, into the cave, and threw the sack over 
him. 

A few minutes later the Regent stood before her. 

She bowed before him with a demeanor that was 
more like the singer Beki than the sorceress Hekt, and 
begged him to take the only seat she possessed. 

When, with a wave of his hand, he declined to sit 
down, she said : 

“Yes — yes — be seated! then thou wilt not be seen 
from the valley, but be screened by the rocks close by. 
Why hast thou chosen this hour for thy visit ?” 

“ Because the matter presses of which I wish to 
speak,” answered Ani; “and in the evening I might 
easily be challenged by the watch. My disguise is 
good. Under this robe I wear my usual dress. From 
this I shall go to the tomb of my father, where I shall 
take off this coarse thing, and these other disfigure- 
ments, and shall wait for my chariot, which is already 


132 


UARDA. 


ordered. I shall tell people I had made a vow to 
visit the grave humbly, and on foot, which I have now 
fulfilled.” 

“ Well planned,” muttered the old woman. 

Ani pointed to the dwarf, and said politely: “Your 
pupil.” 

Since her narrative the sorceress was no longer a 
mere witch in his eyes. The old woman understood 
this, and saluted him with a curtsey of such courtly 
formality, that a tame raven at her feet opened his 
black beak wide, and uttered a loud scream. She threw 
a bit of cheese within the cave, and the bird hopped 
after it, flapping his clipped wings, and was silent. 

“ I have to speak to you about Pentaur,” said Ani. 

The old woman’s eyes flashed, and she eagerly 
asked, “ What of him ?” 

“ I have reasons,” answered the Regent, “ for re- 
garding him as dangerous to me. He stands in my 
way. He has committed many crimes, even murder; 
but he is in favor at the House of Seti, and they 
would willingly let him go unpunished. They have 
the right of sitting in judgment on each other, and I 
cannot interfere with their decisions; the day before 
yesterday they pronounced their sentence. They would 
send him to the quarries of Chennu.* All my ob- 


* Chennti is now Oebel Silsileh ; the quarries there are of enormous extent, 
and almost all the sandstone used for building the temples of Upper Egypt 
was brought from thence. The Nile is narrower there than above, and large 
stelae were erected there by Rameses II. and his successor Memephtah, 
on which were inscribed beautiful hymns to the Nile, and lists of the sacrifices 
to be offered at the Nile-festivals. 'I'hese inscriptions can be restored by com- 
parison, and njy friend Stem and 1 had the satisfaction of doing this on the 
spot (Zeilschrift fiir Agyptische Sprache, 187-5, p. 129.). Rameses the Great in- 
stituted two Nile-festivals, which Stern identifies with “ the night of the drop,” 
or “of the tear,” and with “the cutting of the dykes.” Among the Arabs the 
belief still prevails that the rising of the Nile proceeds from a divine tear. 
The night of the tear i$ the uth Bautieh (in 1873 the 17th June) when the Nile 


UARDA. 


133 


jections were disregarded, and now Nemu, go over 

to the grave of Amenophis, and wait there for me — I 
wish to speak to your mother alone.” 

Nemu bowed, and then Avent down the slope, dis- 
appointed, it is true, but sure of learning later what 
the two had discussed together. 

When the little man had disappeared, Ani asked : 

“ Have you still a heart true to the old royal house, 
to which your parents were so faithfully attached ?” 

The old woman nodded. 

Then you will not refuse your help towards its 
restoration. You understand how necessary the priest- 
hood is to me, and I have sworn not to make any 
attempt on Pentaur’s life; but, I repeat it, he stands 
in my way. I have my spies in the House of Seti, and 
I know through them what the sending of the poet to 
Chennu really means. For a time they will let him 
hew sandstone, and that will only improve his health, 
for he is as sturdy as a tree. In Chennu, as^ you 
know, besides the quarries there is the great college 
of priests, which is in close alliance with the temple of 
Seti. When the flood begins to rise, and they hold 
the great Nile-festival in Chennu, the priests there have 
the right of taking three of the criminals Avho are 
working in the quarries into their house as servants. 
Naturally they will, next year, choose Pentaur, set him 
at liberty — and I shall be laughed at.” 

“ Well considered !” said Hekt. 

“ I have taken counsel with myself, with Katuti, 
and even with Nemu,” continued Ani, “ but all that 

is at its lowest, and the second festival is fixed according to the level to 
which the waters have risen. The two Nile-feasts were solemnized at an 
interval of two months, as also are their modem successors. 


134 


UARDA. 


they have suggested, though certainly practicable, was 
unadvisable, and at any rate must have led to con- 
jectures which I must now avoid. AVhat is your 
opinion ?” 

“ Assa’s race must be exterminated I” muttered the 
old woman hoarsely. 

She gazed at the ground, reflecting. 

“ Let the boat be scuttled,” she said at last, “ and 
sink with the chained prisoners before it reaches 
Chennu.” 

“ No — no ; I thought of that myself, and Nemu too 
advised it,” cried Ani. “ That has been done a hun- 
dred times, and Ameni will regard me as a peijurer, 
for I have sworn not to attempt Pentaur’s life.” 

“To be sure, thou hast sworn that, and men keep 
their word — to each other. Wait a moment, how would 
this do ? Let the ship reach Chennu with the pris- 
oners, but, by a secret order to the captain, pass the 
quarries in the night, and hasten on as fast as possible 
as far as Ethiopia. From Suan,* the prisoners may 
be conducted through the desert to the gold work- 
ings.** Four weeks or even eight may pass before it 
is known here what has happened. If Ameni attacks 
thee about it, thou wilt be very angry at this oversight, 
and canst swear by all the Gods of the heavens and 
of the abyss, that thou hast not attempted Pentaur’s 
life. More weeks will pass in enquiries. Meanwhile 
do thy best, and Paaker do his, and thou art king. 
An oath is easily broken by a sceptre, and if thou wilt 

* The modem Assuan at the first cataract. 

** The frightful fate of Egyptian miners is vividly presented in a famous 
passage of Agatharchides of Knidos, in Diodorus in, 12, 13 and 14. The 
Ethiopian gold-mines were re-discovered in 1832-3 by Bonomi and Linant 
Pasha, but they are now completely exhausted. 


UARDA. 


positively keep thy word leave Pentaur at the gold 
mines. None have yet returned from thence. My 
father’s and my brother’s bones have bleached there.” 

“ But Ameni will never believe in the mistake,” 
cried Ani, anxiously interrupting the witch. 

Then admit that thou gavest the order,” exclaimed 
Hekt. “ Explain that thou hadst learned what they 
proposed doing with Pentaur at Chennu, and that thy 
word indeed was kept, but that a criminal could not 
be left unpunished. They will make further enquiries, 
and if Assa’s grandson is found still living thou wilt 
be justified. Follow my advice, if thou wilt prove thy- 
self a good steward of thy house, and master of its in- 
heritance.” 

“ It will not do,” said the Regent. “ I need 
Ameni’s support — not for to-day and to-morrow only. 
I will not become his blind tool ; but he must believe 
that I am.” 

The old woman shrugged her shoulders, rose, went 
into her cave, and brought out a phial. 

“ I’ake this,” she said. “ Four drops of it in his 
wine infallibly destroys the drinker’s senses ; try the 
drink on a slave, and thou wilt see how effectual 
it is:” 

“ What shall I do with it ?” asked Ani. 

“ Justify thyself to Ameni,” said the witch laughing. 
“ Order the ship’s captain to come to thee as soon as 
he returns ; entertain him with wine — and when Ameni 
sees the distracted wretch, why should he not believe 
that in a fit of craziness he sailed past Chennu ?” 

“ That is clever ! that is splendid !” exclaimed Ani. 
“ What is once remarkable never becomes common. 


136 


UARDA. 


You were the greatest of singers — you are now the 
wisest of women — my lady Beki.” 

“ I am no longer Beki, I am Hekt,” said the old 
woman shortly. 

“ As you will ! In truth, if I had ever heard Beki’s 
singing, I should be bound to still greater gratitude to 
her than I now am to Hekt,” said Ani smiling. “ Still, 
I cannot quit the wisest woman in Thebes without ask- 
ing her one serious question. Is it given to you to 
read the future ? Have you means at your command 
whereby you can see whether the great stake — you 
knov/ which I mean — shall be won or lost ?” 

Hekt looked at the ground,, and said after reflect- 
ing a short time : 

‘T cannot decide with certainty, but thy affair 
stands well. Look at these two hawks with the chain 
on their feet. They take their food from no one but 
me. The one that is moulting, with closed, grey eye- 
lids, is Rameses; the smart, smooth one, with shining 
eyes, is thyself. It comes to this — which of you lives 
the longest. So far, thou hast the advantage.” 

Ani cast an evil glance at the king’s sick hawk; 
but Hekt said : “ Both must be treated exactly alike. 
Fate will not be done violence to.” 

“ Feed them well,” exclaimed the Regent; he threw 
a purse into Hekt’s lap, and added, as he prepared to 
leave her : “ If anything happens to either of the 

birds let me know at once by Nemu.” 

Ani went down the hill, and walked towards the 
neighboring tomb of his father ; but Hekt laughed as 
she looked after him, and muttered to herself : 

“ Now the fool will take care of me for the sake of 
his bird! That smiling, spiritless, indolent-minded 


UARDA. 


137 


man would rule Egypt ! Am I then so much wiser 
than other folks, or do none but fools come to consult 
Hekt ? But Rameses chose Ani to represent him ! per- 
haps because he thinks that those who are not particu- 
larly clever are not particularly dangerous. If that 
is what he thought, he was not wise, for no one usually 
is so self-confident and insolent as just such an idiot.” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

An hour later, Ani, in rich attire, left his father’s 
tomb, and drove his brilliant chariot past the witch’s 
cave, and the little cottage of Uarda’s father. 

Nemu squatted on the step, the dwarf’s usual 
place. The little man looked down at the lately 
rebuilt hut, and ground his teeth, when, through an 
opening in the hedge, he saw the white robe of a man, 
who was sitting by Uarda. 

The pretty child’s visitor was prince Rameri, who 
had crossed the Nile in the early morning, dressed as 
a young scribe of the treasury, to obtain news of Pen^ 
taur — and to stick a rose into Uarda’s hair. 

This purpose was, indeed, the more important of 
the two, for the other must, in point of time at any 
rate, be the second. 

He found it necessary to excuse himself to his own 
conscience with a variety of cogent reasons. In the 
first place the rose, which lay carefully secured in a 
fold of his robe, ran great danger of fading if he first 
waited for his companions near the temple of Seti; 
next, a hasty return from thence to Thebes might 
prove necessary; and finally, it seemed to him not im- 

31 


XJAkDA. 


^ 3 ^ 

possible that Bent-Anat might send a master o£ the 
ceremonies after him, and if that happened any delay 
might frustrate his purpose. 

His heart beat loud and violently, not for love of 
the maiden, but because he felt he was doing wrong. 

The spot that he must tread w'as unclean, and he 
had, for the first time, told a lie. He had given himself 
out to Uarda to be a noble youth of Bent-Anat’s train, 
and, as one falsehood usually entails another, in an- 
swer to her questions he had given her false informa- 
tion as to his parents and his life. 

Had evil more power over him in this unclean 
spot than in the House of Seti, and at his father’s It 
might very well be so, for all disturbance in nature 
and men was the work of Seth, and how wild was the 
storm in his breast ! And yet ! He wished nothing but 
good to come of it to Uarda. She was so fair and 
sweet — like some child of the Gods : and certainly 
the white maiden must have been stolen from some 
one, and could not possibly belong to the unclean 
people. 

When the prince entered the court of the hut, 
Uarda was not to be seen, but he soon heard her voice 
singing out through the open door. She came out into 
the air, for the dog barked furiously at Rameri. When 
she saw the prince, she started, and said : 

“You are here already again, and yet I warned 
you. My grandmother in there is the wife of a para- 
schites.” 

“ I am not come to visit her,” retorted the prince, 
“ but you only ; and you do not belong to them, of 
that I am convinced. No roses grow in the desert.” 

“And yet I am .my father’s child,” said Uarda de- 


UARDA. 


139 


cidedly, “ and my poor dead grandfather’s grandchild. 
Certainly I belong to them, and those that do not 
think me good enough for them may keep away.” 

With these words she turned to re-enter the house; 
but Rameri seized her hand, and held her back, say- 
ing— 

“ How cruel you are ! I tried to save you, and came 
to see you before I thought that you might — and, in- 
deed, you are quite unlike the people whom you call 
your relations. You must not misunderstand me; but 
it would be horrible to me to believe that you, who are 
so beautiful, and as white as a lily, have any part in 
the hideous curse. You charm every one, even my 
mistress, Bent-Anat, and it seems to me impossible — ” 

“ That I should belong to the unclean ! — say it out,” 
said Uarda softly, and casting down her eyes. 

Then she continued more excitedly : “ But 1 tell 
you, the curse is unjust, for a better man never lived 
than my grandfather was.” 

Tears sprang from her eyes, and Rameri said: “I 
fully believe it; and it must be very difficult to con- 
tinue good when every one despises and scorns one; 

I at least can be brought to no good by blame, though % 
1 can by praise. Certainly people are obliged to meet 
me and mine with respect.” 

“ And us with contempt !” exclaimed Uarda. “ But 
I will tell you something. If a man is sure that he is 
good, it is all the same to him whether he be despised or 
honored by other people. Nay — we may be prouder 
than you ; for you great folks must often say to your- 
selves that you are worth less than men value you at, 
and we know that we are worth more.” 

“ I have often thought that of you,” exclaimed Ra- 


140 


UARDA. 


meri, “and there is one who recognizes your worth, 
and that is I. Even if it were otherwise, I must always 
— always think of you.” 

“I have thought of you too,” said Uarda. “Just 
now, when I was sitting with my sick grandmother, it 
passed through my mind how nice it would be if I had 
a brother just like you. Do you know what I should 
do if you were my brother ?” 

“Well?” •: 

“ I should buy you a chariot and horse, and you 
should go away to the king’s war.” 

“ Are you so rich ?” asked Rameri smiling. 

“ Oh yes!” answered Uarda. “ To be sure, I have 
not been rich for more than an hour. Can you read ?” 

“ Yes” 

“ Only think, when I was ill they sent a doctor to 
me from the House of Seti.- He was very clever, but a 
strange man. He often looked into my eyes like a 
drunken man, and he stammered when he spoke.” 

“ Is his name Nebsecht ?” asked the prince. 

“Yes, Nebsecht. He planned strange things with 
grandfather, and after Pentaur and you had saved us 
in the frightful attack upon us he interceded for us. 
Since then he has not come again, for I was already 
much better. Now to-day, about two hours ago, the dog 
barked, and an old man, a stranger, came up to me, 
and said he was Nebsecht’s brother, and had a great 
deal of money in his charge for me. He gave me a 
ring too, and said that he would pay the money to 
him, who took the ring to him from me. Then he 
read this letter to me.” 

Rameri took the letter and read. 

“ Nebsecht to the fair Uarda.” 


UARDA. 


I4I 

“ Nebsecht greets Uarda, and informs her that he 
owed her grandfather in Osiris, Pinem — whose body 
the kolchytes are embalming like that of a noble — a 
sum of a thousand gold rings. These he has entrusted 
to his brother Teta to hold ready for her at any mo- 
ment. She may trust Teta entirely, for he is honest, 
and ask him for money whenever she needs it. It 
would be best that she should ask Teta to take care of 
the money for her, and to buy her a house and field ; 
then she could remove into it, and live in it free from 
care with her grandmother. She may wait a year, and 
then she may choose a husband. Nebsecht loves 
Uarda much. If at the end of thirteen months he has 
not been to see her, she had better marry whom she 
will ; but not before she has shown the jewel left her 
by her mother to the king’s interpreter.” 

“ How strange !” exclaimed Rameri. Who would 
have given the singular physician, who always wore 
such dirty clothes, credit for such generosity ? But 
what is this jewel that you have ?” 

Uarda opened her shirt, and showed the prince 
the sparkling ornament. 

“ Those are diamonds — it is very valuable !” cried 
the prince ; “ and there in the middle on the onyx 
there are sharply engraved signs. I cannot read them, 
but I will show them to the interpreter. Did your 
mother wear that ?” 

“ My father found it on her when she died,” said 
Uarda. “She came to Egypt as a prisoner of war, 
and was as white as I am, but dumb, so she could 
not tell us the name of her home.” 

“ She belonged to some great house among the 
foreigners, and the children inherit from the mother,” 


142 


UARDA. 


cried the prince joyfully. “ You are a princess, Uarda ! 
Oh ! how glad I am, and how much I love you !” 

The girl smiled and said, “ Now you will not be 
afraid to touch the daughter of the unclean.” 

“You are cruel,” replied the prince. “ Shall I tell 
you what I determined on yesterday, — what would not 
let me sleep last night, — and for what I came here to- 
day ?” 

“Well ?” 

Rameri took a most beautiful white rose out of his 
robe and said — 

“ It is very childish, but I thought how it would be 
if I might put this flower with my own hands into your 
shining hair. May I ?” 

“ It is a splendid rose ! I never saw such a fine 
one.” 

“ It is for my haughty princess. Do pray let me 
dress your hair ! It is like silk from Tyre, like a 
swan’s breast, like golden star-beams — there, it is fixed 
safely! Nay, leave it so. If the seven Hathors could 
see you, they would be jealous, for you are fairer than 
all of them.” 

“ How you flatter!” said Uarda, shyly blushing, and 
looking into his sparkling eyes. 

“ Uarda,” said the prince, pressing her hand to his 
heart. “ I have now but one wish. Feel how my 
heart hammers and beats. I believe it will never rest 
again till you — yes, Uarda — till you let me give you 
one, only one, kiss.” 

The girl drew back. 

“ Now,” she said seriously. “ Now I see what you 
want. Old Hekt knows men, and she warned me.” 

Who is Hekt, and what can she know of me ?” 


UARDA. 


143 


She told me that the time would come when a 
man would try to make friends with me. He would 
look intO' my eyes, and if mine met his, then he would 
ask to kiss me. But I must refuse him, because if I 
liked him to kiss me he would seize my soul, and take 
it from me, and I must wander, like the restless ghosts, 
which the abyss rejects, and the storm whirls before it, 
and the sea will not cover, and the sky will not receive, 
soulless to the end of my days. Go away — for I can- 
not refuse you the kiss, and yet I would not wander 
restless, and without a soul !” 

“ Is the old woman who told you that a good wom- 
an ?” asked Rameri. 

Uarda shook her head. 

She cannot be good,” cried the prince, “ For 
she has spoken a falsehood. I will not seize your soul ; 
I will give you mine to be yours, and you shall give me 
yours to be mine, and so we shall neither of us be 
poorer — but both richer !” 

“I should like to believe it,” said Uarda thought- 
fully, “and 1 have thought the same kind of thing. 
When I was strong, I often had to go late in the 
evening to fetch water from the landing-place where 
the great water-wheel stands. Thousands of drops 
fall from the earthenware pails as it turns, and in each 
you can see the reflection of a moon, yet there is only 
one in the sky. Then I thought to myself, so it must 
be with the love in our hearts. We have but one 
heart, and yet we pour it out into other hearts without 
its losing in strength or in warmth. I thought of my 
grandmother, of my father, of little Scherau, of the 
Gods, and of Pentaur. Now I should like to give 
you a part of it too,” 


144 


UARDA. 


“ Only a part ?” asked Rameri. 

“Well, the whole will be reflected in you, you 
know,” said Uarda, “as the whole moon is reflected in 
each drop.” 

“ It shall !” cried the prince, clasping the trembling 
girl in his arms, and the two young souls were united 
in their first kiss. 

“ Now do go!” Uarda entreated. 

“ Let me stay a little while,” said Rameri. “ Sit 
down here by me on the bench in front of the house. 
The hedge shelters us, and besides this valley is now 
deserted, and there are no passers by.” 

“We are doing what is not right,” said Uarda. 
“ If it were right we should not want to hide our- 
selves.” 

“ Do you call that wrong which the priests perform 
in the Holy of Holies ?” asked the prince. “ And yet 
it is concealed from all eyes.” 

“How you can argue!” laughed Uarda. “That 
shows you can write, and are one of his disciples.” 

“His, his!” exclaimed Rameri. “You mean Pen- 
taur. He was always the dearest to me of all my 
teachers, but it vexes me when you speak of him as if 
he were more to you than I and every one else. The 
poet, you said, was one of the drops in which the 
moon of your soul finds a reflection — and I will not 
divide it with many.” 

“ How you are talking!” said Uarda. “ Do you not 
honor your father, and the Gods ? I love no one else 
as I do you — and what I felt when you kissed me — 
that was not like moon-light, but like this hot mid-day 
sun. When I thought of you I had no peace. I will 
confess to you now, that twenty times I looked out of 


UARDA. 


HS 

the door, and asked whether my preserver — the kind, 
curly-headed boy — would really come again, or whether 
he despised a poor girl like me ? You came, and I 
am so happy, and I could enjoy myself with you to 
my heart’s content. Be kind again — or I will pull 
your hair!” 

“ You !” cried Rameri. “ You cannot hurt with your 
little hands, though you can with your tongue. Pen- 
taur is much wiser and better than I, you owe much to 
him, and nevertheless I — ” 

“ Let that rest,” interrupted the girl, growing grave. 
“ He is not a man like other men. If he asked to kiss 
me, I should crumble into dust, as ashes dried in the 
sun crumble if you touch them with a finger, and I 
should be as much afraid of his lips as of a lion’s. 
Though you may laugh at it, I shall always believe that 
he is one of the Immortals. His own father told me 
that a great wonder was shown to him the very day 
after his birth. Old Hekt has often sent me to the 
gardener with a message to enquire after his son, and 
though the man is rough he is kind. At first he was not 
friendly, but when he saw how much I liked his flowers 
he grew fond of me, and set me to work to tie wreaths 
and bunches, and to carry them to his customers. As 
we sat together, laying the flowers side by side, he con- 
stantly told me something about his son, and his beauty 
and goodness and wisdom. When he was quite a little 
boy he could write poems, and he learned to read be- 
fore any one had shown him how. The high-priest 
Ameni heard of it and took him to the House of Seti, and 
there he improved, to the astonishment of the gardener; 
not long ago I went through the garden with the old 
man. He talked of Pentaur as usual, and then stood 


146 


UARDA. 


Still before a noble shrub with broad leaves, and said, 
‘ My son is like this plant, which has grown up close to 
me, and I know not how. I laid the seed in the soil, 
with others that I bought over there in Thebes ; no one 
knows where it came from, and yet it is my own. It 
certainly is not a native of Egypt ; and is not Pentaur 
as high above me and his mother and his brothers, as 
this shrub is above the other flowers ? We are all 
small and bony, and he is tall and slim ; our skin is 
dark and his is rosy ; our speech is hoarse, his as sweet 
as a song. I believe he is a child of the Gods that the 
Immortals have laid in my homely house. Who knows 
their decrees ?’ And then I often saw Pentaur at the 
festivals, and asked myself which of the other priests 
of the temple came near him in height and dignity ? I 
took him for a God, and when I saw him who 
saved my life overcome a whole mob with superhuman 
strength must I not regard him as a superior Being ? 
I look up to him as to one of them ; but I could never 
look in his eyes as I do in yours. It would not make 
my blood flow faster, it would freeze it in my veins. 
How can I say what I mean ! my soul looks straight 
out, and it finds you ; but to find him it must look up 
to the heavens. You are a fresh rose-garland with 
which I crown myself — he is a sacred persea-tree* be- 
fore which I bow.” 

Rameri listened to her in silence, and then said, 
“ I am still young, and have done nothing yet, but the 
time shall come in which you shall look up to me too 
as to a tree, not perhaps a sacred tree, but as to a 
sycamore under whose shade we love to rest. I am no 
longer gay ; I will leave you for I have a serious duty 

* Persea, probably Balanistes ACgyptiaca. 


UARDA. 


147 


to fulfil. Pentaur is a complete man, and I will be one 
too. But you shall be the rose-garland to grace me. 
Men who can be compared to flowers disgust me !” 

The prince rose, and offered Uarda his hand. 

“You have a strong hand,” said the girl. “You 
will be a noble man, and work for good and great 
ends ; only look, my fingers are quite red with being 
held so tightly. But they too are not quite useless. 
They have never done anything very hard certainly, 
but what they tend flourishes, and grandmother says 
they are ‘ lucky.’ Look at the lovely lilies and the pome- 
grenate bush in that corner. Grandfather brought the 
earth here from the Nile, Pentaur’s father gave me the 
seeds, and each little plant that ventured to show a 
green shoot through the soil I sheltered and nursed and 
watered, though I had to fetch the water in my little 
pitcher, till it was vigorous, and thanked me with flowers. 
Take this pomegranate flower. It is the first my tree 
has borne ; and it is very strange, when the bud first 
began to lengthen and swell my grandmother said, ‘Now 
your heart will soon begin to bud and love.’ I know 
now what she meant, and both the first flowers belong 
to you — the red one here off the tree, and the other, 
which you cannot see, but which glows as brightly as 
this does.” 

Rameri pressed the scarlet blossom to his lips, and 
stretched out his hand toward Uarda; but she shrank 
back, for a little figure slipped through an opening in 
the hedge. 

It was Scherau. 

His pretty little face glowed with his quick run, 
and his breath was gone. For a few minutes he tried 
in vain for words, and looked anxiously at the prince. 


148 


UARDA. 


Uarda saw that something unusual agitated him ; 
she spoke to him kindly, saying that if he wished to 
speak to her alone he need not be afraid of Rameri, for 
he was her best friend. 

“ But it does not concern you and me,” replied the 
child, “ but the good, holy father Pentaur, who was so 
kind to me, and who saved your life.” 

“ I am a great friend of Pentaur,” said the prince. 
“ Is it not true, Uarda ? He may speak with confidence 
before me.” 

“ I may ?” said Scherau, “ that is well. I have 
slipped away ; Hekt may come back at any moment, 
and if she sees that I have taken myself off I shall get 
a beating and nothing to eat.” 

“ Who is this horrible Hekt ?” asked Rameri in- 
dignantly. 

“That Uarda can tell you by and by,” said the 
little one hurriedly. “ Now only listen. She laid me on 
my board in the cave, and threw a sack over me, and 
first came Nemu, and then another man, whom she 
spoke to as ‘ Steward.’ She talked to him a long time. 
At first I did not listen, but then I caught the name of 
Pentaur, and I got my head out, and now I understand 
it all. The steward declared that the good Pentaur 
was wicked, and stood in his way, and he said that 
Ameni was going to send him to the quarries at Chennu, 
but that that was much too small a punishment. Then 
Hekt advised him to give a secret commission to the 
captain of the ship to go beyond Chennu, to the fright- 
ful mountain-mines, of which she has often told me, for 
her father and her brother were tormented to death 
there.” 


UARDA. 


149 


Nono ever return from thence,” said the prince. 

But go on.” 

“ What came next, I only half understood, but they 
spoke of some drink that makes people mad. Oh! 
what I see and hear ! — I would lie contentedly on my 
board all my life long, but all else is too horrible — I 
wish that I were dead.” 

And the child began to cry bitterly. 

Uarda, whose cheeks had turned pale, patted him 
affectionately ; but Rameri exclaimed : 

“It is frightful! unheard of! But who was the 
steward ? did you not hear his name ? Collect your- 
self, little man, and stop crying. It is a case of life and 
death. Who was the scoundrel ? Did she not name 
him ? Try to remember.” 

Scherau bit his red lips, and tried for composure. 
His tears ceased, and suddenly he exclaimed, as he put 
his hand into the breast of his ragged little garment : 
“ Stay, perhaps you will know him again — I made him!” 

“ You did what ?” asked the prince. 

“ I made him,” repeated the little artist, and he care- 
fully brought out an object wrapped up in a scrap of rag. 

“ I could just see his head quite clearly from one 
side all the time he was speaking, and my clay lay by 
me. I always must model something when my mind 
is excited, and this time I quickly made his face, and 
as the image was successful, I kept it about me to show 
to the master* when Hekt was out.” 

While he spoke he had carefully unwrapped the 
figure with trembling fingers, and had given it to Uarda. 

* The portraits on the monuments, especially the profiles in bas-relief, are 
modelled with remarkable exactness. I’he sketches in an unfinished hall in the 
tomb of Seti I., at Biban el Muluk arouse the warmest admiration of our modern 
artists. A beautiful collection of the busts of the Pharaohs may be found in 
Lepsms’ “Denkmalern aus /Kgypten und /Ethiopicn.” 


UARDA. 


'50 


“ Ani !” cried the prince. “ He, and no other ! Who 
could have thought it! What spite has he against 
Pentaur ? What is the priest to him ?” 

For a moment he reflected, then he struck his hand 
against his forehead. 

“ Fool that I am !” he exclaimed vehemently. “Child 
that I am ! of course, of course ; I see it all. Ani asked 
for Bent-Anat’s hand, and she — now that I love you, 
Uarda, I understand what ails her. Away with deceit ! 
I will tell you no more lies, Uarda. I am no page of 
honor to Bent-Anat; I am her brother, and king 
Rameses’ own son. Do not cover your face with your 
hands, Uarda, for if I had not seen your mother’s jewel, 
and if I were not only a prince, but Horus himself, the 
son of Isis, I must have loved you, and would not have 
given you up. But now other things have to be done 
besides lingering with you ; now I will show you that 
I am a man, now that Pentaur is to be saved. Fare- 
well, Uarda, and think of me!” 

He would have hurried off, but Scherau held him 
by the robe, and said timidly : Thou sayst thou art 
Rameses’ son. Hekt spoke of him too. She compared 
him to our moulting hawk.” 

“ She shall soon feel the talons of the royal eagle,” 
cried Rameri. “ Once more, farewell !” 

He gave Uarda his hand, she pressed it passionately 
to her lips, but he drew it away, kissed her forehead, 
and was gone. 

The maiden looked after him pale and speechless. 

She saw another man hastening towards her, and 
recognizing him as her father, she went quickly to meet 
him. The soldier had come to take leave of her, he 
had to escort some prisoners. 


UARDA. 




“To Chennu ?” asked Uarda. 

“ No, to the north,” replied the man. 

His daughter now related what she had heard, 
and asked whether he could help the priest, who had 
saved her. 

“ If I had money, if I had money !” muttered the 
soldier to himself. 

“We have some,” cried Uarda; she told him of 
Nebsecht’s gift,* and said : “Take me over the Nile, 
and in two hours you will have enough to make a 
man rich. But no ; I cannot leave my sick grand- 
mother. You yourself take the ring, and remember 
that Pentaur is being punished for having dared to 
protect us.” 

“ 1 remember it,” said the soldier. “ I have but one 
life, but I will willingly give it to save his. I cannot 
devise schemes, but I know something, and if it suc- 
ceeds he need not go to the gold-mines. I will put 
the wine-flask aside; give me a drink of water, for 
the next few hours I must keep a sober head.” 

“ There is the water, and I will pour in a mouthful 
of wine. Will you come back and bring me news ?” 

“ That will not do, for we set sail at midnight, but 
if some one returns to you with the ring you will know 
that what I propose has succeeded.” 

Uarda went into the hut, her father followed her; 
he took leave of his sick mother and of his daughter. 
When they went out of doors again, he said: “You 
have to live on the princess’s gift till I return, and I 

* It may be observed that among the Egytians women were qualified to 
own and dispose of property. For example a papynis (vii) in the Louvre 
contains an agreement between Asklepias (called Senimuthis), the daughter or 
maid-servant of a corpse-dtesser of Thebes, who is the debtor, and Arsiesis, the 
creditor, the s»on of a jcolchytes ; both therefore firo of the same rank as Uardg. 


152 


UARDA. 


do not want half of the physician’s present. But where 
is your pomegranate blossom ?” 

“ I have picked it and preserved it in a safe place.” 

“ Strange things are women !” muttered the bearded 
man ; he tenderly kissed his child’s forehead, and re- 
turned to the Nile down the road by which he had 
come. 

The prince meanwhile had hurried on, and enquired 
in the harbor of the Necropolis where the vessel 
destined for Chennu was lying — for the ships loaded 
with prisoners were accustomed to sail from this side 
of the river, starting at night. Then he was ferried 
over the river, and hastened to Bent-Anat. He found 
her and Nefert in unusual excitement, for the faithful 
chamberlain had learned — through some friends of the 
king in Ani’s suite — that the Regent had kept back all 
the letters intended for Syria, and among them those 
of the royal family. 

A lord in waiting, who was devoted to the king, 
had been encouraged by the chamberlain to communi- 
cate to Bent-Anat other things, which hardly allowed 
any doubts as to the ambitious projects of her uncle ; 
she was also exhorted to be on her guard with Nefert, 
whose mother was the confidential adviser of the 
Regent. 

Bent-Anat smiled at this warning, and sent at once 
a message to Ani to inform him that she was ready to 
undertake the pilgrimage to the “ Emerald- Hath or, ”and 
to be purified in the sanctuary of that Goddess. 

She purposed sending a message to her father from 
thence, and if he permitted it, joining him at the camp. 


tJARDA. 


153 


She imparted this plan to her friend, and Nefert 
thought any road the best that would take her to her 
husband. 

Rameri was soon initiated into all this, and in re- 
turn he told them all he had learned, and let Bent- 
Anat guess that he had read her secret. 

So dignified, so grave, were the conduct and the 
speech of the boy who had so lately been an over- 
bearing mad-cap, that Bent-Anat thought to herself that 
the danger of their house had suddenly ripened a boy 
into a man. 

She had in fact no objection to raise to his ar- 
rangements. He proposed to travel after sunset, with 
a few faithful servants on swift horses as far as Keft,* 
and from thence ride fast across the desert to the Red 
Sea, where they could take a Phoenician ship, and sail 
to Aila.** From thence they would cross the peninsula 
of Sinai, and strive to reach the Egyptian army by 
forced marches, and make the king acquainted with 
Ani’s criminal attempts. 

To Bent-Anat was given the task of rescuing Pen- 
taur, with the help of the faithful chamberlain. 

Money was fortunately not wanting, as the high 
treasurer was on their side. All depended on their in- 
ducing the captain to stop at Chennu ; the poet’s fate 
would there, at the worst, be endurable. At the same 
time, a trustworthy messenger was to be sent to the 
governor of Chennu, commanding him in the name of 
the king to detain every ship that might pass the nar- 
rows of Chennu by night, and to prevent any of the 

* Koptos, now Qeft on the Nile. ** Now Aqaba. 

32 


54 


UARDA. 


prisoners that had been condemned to the quarries 
from being smuggled on to Ethiopia. 

Rameri took leave of the two women, and he suc- 
ceeded in leaving Thebes unobserved. 

Bent-Anat knelt in prayer before the images of her 
mother in Osiris, of Hathor, and of the guardian Gods 
of her house, till the chamberlain returned, and told 
her that he had persuaded the captain of the ship to 
stop at Chennu, and to conceal from Ani that he had 
betrayed his charge. 

The princess breathed more freely, for she had 
come to a resolution that if the chamberlain had failed 
in his mission, she would cross over to the Necropolis, 
forbid the departure of the vessel, and in the last 
extremity rouse the people, who were devoted to her, 
against Ani. 

The following morning the Lady Katuti craved 
permission of the princess to see her daughter. Bent- 
Anat did not show herself to the widow, whose efforts 
failed to keep her daughter from accompanying the 
princess on her journey, or to induce her to return 
home. Angry and uneasy, the indignant mother hastened 
to Ani, and implored him to keep Nefert at home by 
force ; but the Regent wished to avoid attracting atten- 
tion, and to let Bent-Anat set out with a feeling of 
complete security. 

“ Do not be uneasy,” he said. “ I will give the ladies 
a trustworthy escort, who will keep them at the Sanc- 
tuary of the ‘Emerald- Hath or’ till all is settled. There 
you can deliver Nefert to Paaker, if you still like to 
have him for a son-in-law after hearing several things 
that I have learned. As for me, in the end I may in- 


UARDA, 


155 


duce my haughty niece to look up instead of down ; 
I may be her second love, though for that matter she 
certainly is not my first.” 

On the following day the princess set out. 

Ani took leave of her with kindly formality, which 
she returned with coolness. The priesthood of the 
temple of Amon, with old Bek en Chunsu at their 
head, escorted her to the harbor. The people on 
the banks shouted Bent-Anat’s name with a thousand 
blessings, but many insulting words were to be heard 
also. 

The pilgrim’s Nile-boat was followed by two others, 
full of soldiers, who accompanied the ladies to pro- 
tect them.” 

The south-wind filled the sails, and carried the 
little procession swiftly down the stream. The prin- 
cess looked now towards the palace of her fathers, now 
towards the tombs and temples of the Necropolis. At 
last even the colossus of Amenophis disappeared, and 
the last houses of Thebes. The brave maiden sighed 
deeply, and tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt 
as if she were flying after a lost battle, and yet not 
wholly discouraged, but hoping for future victory. As 
she turned to go to the cabin, a veiled girl stepped 
up to her, took the veil from her face, and said : 

“ Pardon me, princess; I amUarda, whom thou didst 
run over, and to whom thou hast since been so good. 
My grandmother is dead, and I am quite alone. I 
slipped in among thy maid-servants, for I wish to follow 
thee, and to obey all thy commands. Only do not 
send me away.” 

“ Stay, dear child,” said the princess, laying her 
hand on her hair. , 


UARDA. 


156 


Then, struck by its wonderful beauty, she remem- 
bered her brother, and his wish to place a rose in 
Uarda’s shining tresses. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Two months had past since Bent-Anat’s departure 
from Thebes, and the imprisonment of Pentaur. 

Ant-Baba is the name of the valley, in the western 
half of the peninsula of Sinai,* through which a long 
procession of human beings, and of beasts of burden, 
wended their way. 

It was winter, and yet the mid-day sun sent down 
glowing rays, which were reflected from the naked 
rocks. In front of the caravan marched a company of 
Libyan soldiers, and another brought up the rear. 
Each man was armed with a dagger and battle-axe, a 
shield and a lance, and was ready to use his weapons ; 
for those whom they were escorting were prisoners 
from the emerald-mines, who had been convoyed to 
the shores of the Red Sea** to carry thither the pro- 
duce of the mines, and had received, as a return-load, 
provisions which had arrived from Egypt, and which 
were to be carried to the storehouses of the mountain- 
mines. Bent and panting, they made their way along. 
Each prisoner had a copper chain riveted round his 
ankles, and torn rags hanging round their loins, were the 
only clothing of these unhappy beings, who, gasping 
under the weight of the sacks they had to carry, 

I have described in detail the peninsula of Sinai, its history, and the 
sacred places on it, in my book “Durch Gosen zum Sinai,” published in 1872. In 
ilepicting this scenery in the present romance, I have endeavored to reproduce 
the reality as closely as possible. He who has wandered through this wonderful 
mountain wilderness can never forget it. The valley now called “ Baba,” bore 
the same name in the time of the Pharaohs. 

** I'he old road leading from the mines to the sea seems to have ended at 
the bay, now called Abu Zctimch, near the cape of the same name. 


LTARDA. 


157 


kept their staring eyes fixed on the ground. If one of 
them threatened to sink altogether under his burden, 
he was refreshed by the whip of one of the horsemen, 
who accompanied the caravan. Many a one found it 
hard to choose whether he could best endure the suffer- 
ing of mere endurance, or the torture of the lash. 

No one spoke a word, neither the prisoners nor 
their guards ; and even those who were flogged did not 
cry out, for their powers were exhausted, and in the 
souls of their drivers there was no more impulse of 
pity than there was a green herb on the rocks by the 
way. This melancholy procession moved silently on- 
wards, like a procession of phantoms, and the ear was 
only made aware of it when now and then a low groan 
broke from one of the victims. 

The sandy path, trodden by their naked feet, gave no 
sound, the mountains seemed to withhold their shade, 
the light of day was a torment— every thing far and near 
seemed inimical to the living. Not a plant, not a creep- 
ing thing, showed itself against the weird forms of the 
barren grey and brown rocks, and no soaring bird tempt- 
ed the oppressed wretches to raise their eyes to heaven. 

In the noontide heat of the previous day they had 
started with their loads from the harbor-creek. For 
two hours they had followed the shore of the glistening, 
blue-green sea,* then they had climbed a rocky shoulder 
and crossed a small plateau. They had paused for 
their night’s rest in the gorge which led to the mines ; 
the guides and soldiers lighted fires, grouped themselves 
round them, and lay down to sleep under the shelter of 

* The Red Sea — in Hebrew and Coptic the reedy sea — is of a lovely blue 
green color. According to the Ancients it was named red either from its red 
banks or from the Erythrseans, who were called the red people. On an early 
’.nscription it is called “ the water of the Red countrj’.” See “Durch Gosen 
zum Sinai. '* 


UARDA. 


158 

a cleft in the rocks ; the prisoners stretched themselves 
on the earth in the middle of the valley without any 
shelter, and shivering with the cold which suddenly 
succeeded the glowing heat of the day. The benumbed 
wretches now looked forward to the crushing misery 
of the morning’s labor as eagerly as, a few hours since, 
they had longed for the night, and for rest. 

I.entil-broth and hard bread in abundance, but a 
very small quantity of water was given to them before 
they started; then they set out through the gorge, which 
grew hotter and hotter, and through ravines where they 
could pass only one by one. Every now and then it 
seemed as if the path came to an end, but each time it 
found an outlet, and went on — as endless as the tor- 
ment of the wayfarers. 

Mighty walls of rock composed the view, looking as 
if they were formed of angular masses of hewn stone 
piled up in rows ; and of all the miners one, and one 
only, had eyes for these curious structures of the ever- 
various hand of Nature. 

This one had broader shoulders than his companions, 
and his burden weighed on him comparatively lightly. 

“ In this solitude,” thought he, “ which repels man, 
and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu,* the 
laborers w'ho form the world, have spared themselves 
the trouble of filling up the seams, and rounding off 
the comers. How is it that Man should have dedicated 
this hideous land — in which even the human heart 
seems to be hardened against all pity — to the merciful 
Hathor?** Perhaps because it so sorely stands in need 

* See note 3, page 113— Vol. I. 

The monunients at the mines Wadi Maghara and Sarbut el Chadem, on 
the peninsula of Sinai, show that Hathor was held in greater reverence than any 
of the other Gods. 


UARDA. 159 

of the joy and peace which the loving goddess alone 
can bestow.” 

“ Keep the line, Huni!” shouted a driver. 

The man thus addressed, closed up to the next 
man, the panting leech Nebsecht. We know the other 
stronger prisoner. It is Pentaur, who had been entered 
as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called 
by that name. The file moved on ; at every step the 
ascent grew more rugged. Red and black fragments 
of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of man, 
lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up 
the almost perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. 
Here another gorge opened before them, and this time 
there seemed to be no outlet. 

“ Load the asses less !” cried the captain of the 
escort to the prisoners. Then he turned to the soldiers, 
and ordered them, when the beasts were eased, to put 
the extra burthens on the men. Putting forth their 
utmost strength, the overloaded men labored up the 
steep and hardly distinguishable mountain path.* 

The man in front of Pentaur, a lean old man, when 
half way up the hill-side, fell in a heap under his load, 
and a driver, who in a narrow defile could not reach 
the bearers, threw a stone at him to urge him to a re- 
newed effort. 

The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry 
— the paraschites stricken down with stones — ^his own 
struggle with the mob — and the appearance of Bent- 
Anat flashed into Pentaur’s memory. Pity and a sense 
of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he 
hastily snatched the sack from the shoulders of the 
old man, threw it over his own, helped up the fallen 

* Now called Naqb el Buddrah. Major Macdonald, the Englishman, who 
reopened the old turquoise mines, restored the ancient oath. 


i6o 


UARDA. 


wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in mount- 
ing the rocky wall. 

The pulses throbbed in Pentaur’s temples, and he 
shuddered with horror, as he looked down from the 
height of the pass into the abyss below, and round upon 
the countless pinnacles and peaks, cliffs and precipices, 
in many-colored rocks — white and grey, sulphurous 
yellow, blood-red and ominous black. He recalled the 
sacred lake of Muth in Thebes,* round which sat a 
hundred statues of the lion -headed Goddess in black 
basalt, each on a pedestal ; and the rocky peaks, which 
surrounded the valley at his feet, seemed to put on a 
semblance of life and to move and open their yawning 
jaws; through the wild rush of blood in his ears he 
fancied he heard tliem roar, and the load beyond his 
strength which he carried gave him a sensation as 
though their clutch was on his breast. 

Nevertheless he reached the goal. 

The other prisoners flung their loads from their 
shoulders, and threw themselves down to rest. Mechan- 
ically he did the same : his pulses beat more calmly, by 
degrees the visions faded from his senses, he saw and 
heard once more, and his brain recovered its balance. 
The old man and Nebsecht were lying beside him. 

His grey-haired companion rubbed the swollen 
veins in his neck, and called down all the blessings of 
the Gods upon his head; but the captain of the cara- 
van cut him short, exclaiming : 

“ You have strength for three, Huni; farther on, we 
will load you more heavily.” 

“ How much the kindly Gods care for our prayers 

* An admirable representation of it by Carl Werner, may be found among 
his Nile pictures, published by Seitz. 


UARDA. 


l6l 


for the blessing of others !” exclaimed Nebsecht. “ How 
well they know how to reward a good action!” 

“ I am rewarded enough,” said Pentaur, looking 
kindly at the old man. “ But you, you everlasting 
scoffer — you look pale. How do you feel ?” 

“As if I were one of those donkeys there,” replied 
the naturalist. “ My knees shake like theirs, and I 
think and I wish neither more nor less than they do ; 
that is to say — I would we were in our stalls.” 

“ If you can think,” said Pentaur smiling, “you are 
not so very bad.” 

“ I had a good thought just now, when you were 
staring up into the sky. The intellect, say the priestly 
sages, is a vivifying breath of the eternal spirit, and our 
soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter which we 
call a human being. I sought the spirit at first in the 
heart, then in the brain; but now I know that it resides 
in the arms and legs, for when I have strained them 
I find thought is impossible. I am too tired to enter 
on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my 
legs with the utmost consideration.” 

“ Quarrelling again you two ? On again, men!” cried 
the driver. 

The weary wretches rose slowly, the .beasts were 
loaded, and on went the pitiable procession, so as to 
reach the mines before sunset. 

The destination of the travellers was a wide valley, 
closed in by two high and rocky mountain-slopes ; it was 
called Ta Mafka by the Egyptians, Dophka by the He- 
brews. The southern cliff-wall consisted of dark granite, 
the northern of red sandstone ; in a distant branch of the 
valley* lay the mines in which copper was found. In 

* Discovered by Palmer and Wilson, in Wadi Umm Themaim. I gladly call at- 
tention to the interesting book “The P'sert ofth? Exodus etc.,” by A. M. Palmer. 
Cambridge, 1871. 


UARDA. 


162 

the midst of the valley rose a hill,* surrounded by a wall, 
and crowned with small stone houses, for the guard, the 
officers, and the overseers.** According to the old regu- 
lations, they were without roofs, but as many deaths and 
much sickness had occurred among the workmen in con- 
sequence of the cold nights, they had been slightly shel- 
tered with palm-branches brought from the oasis of the 
Amalekites, at no great distance. 

On the uttermost peak of the hill, where it was most 
exposed to the wind, were the smelting furnaces, and a 
manufactory where a peculiar green glass was prepared, 
which was brought into the market under the name of 
Mafkat, that is to say, emerald. The genuine precious 
stone was found farther to the south, on the western shore 
of the Red Sea, and was highly prized in Egypt. 

Our friends had already for more than a month be- 
longed to the mining-community of the Mafkat valley, 
and Pentaur had never learned how it was that he had 
been brought hither with his companion Nebsecht, in- 
stead of going to the sandstone quarries of Chennu. 

That Uarda’s father had effected this change w'as be- 
yond a doubt, and the poet trusted the rough but honest 
soldier who still kept near him, and gave him credit for 
the best intentions, although he had only spoken to him 
once since their departure from Thebes. 

That was the first night, when he had come up to 
Pentaur, and whispered : “ I am looking after you. You 
will find the physician Nebsecht here; but treat each 
other as enemies rather than as friends, if you do not 
wish to be parted.” 

Pentaur had communicated the soldier’s advice to 
Nebsecht, and he had followed it in his own way. 

*Now called Wadi Maghara. ”* Ruins of these houses still remain, 


UARDA. 


163 


It afforded him a secret pleasure to see how Pentaur’s 
life contradicted the belief in a just and beneficent order- 
ing of the destinies of men ; and the more he and the poet 
were oppressed, the more bitter was the irony, often 
amounting to extravagance, with which the mocking 
sceptic attacked him. 

He loved Pentaur, for the poet had in his keeping the 
key which alone could give admission to the beautiful 
world which lay locked up in his own soul; but yet it was 
easy to him, if he thought they were observed, to play his 
part, and to overwhelm Pentaur with words which, to the 
drivers, were devoid of meaning, and which made them 
laugh by the strange blundering fashion in which he 
stammered them out. 

“A belabored husk of the divine self-consciousness.” 
“An advocate of righteousness hit on the mouth.” 
“ A juggler who makes as much of this worst of all pos- 
sible worlds as if it were the best.” “An admirer of the 
lovely color of his blue bruises.” These and other terms 
of invective, intelligible only to himself and his butt, he 
could always pour out in new combinations, exciting 
Pentaur to sharp and often witty rejoinders, equally un- 
intelligible to the uninitiated. 

Frequently their sparring took the form of a serious 
discussion, which served a double purpose; first their 
minds, accustomed to serious thought, found exercise in 
spite of the murderous pressure of the burden of forced 
labor; and secondly, they were supposed really to be 
enemies. They slept in the same court-yard, and con- 
trived, now and then, to exchange a few words in secret; 
but by day Nebsecht worked in the turquoise-diggings, 
and Pentaur in the mines, for the careful chipping out of 
the precious stones from their stony matrix was the work 


164 


UARDA. 


best suited to the slight physician, while Pentaur’s giant- 
strength was fitted for hewing the ore out of the hard 
rock. The drivers often looked in surprise at his power- 
ful strokes, as he flung his pick against the stone. 

The stupendous images that in such moments of wild 
energy rose before the poet’s soul, the fearful or enchanting 
tones that rang in his spirit’s ear — none could guess at. 

Usually his excited fancy showed him the formof Bent- 
Anat, surrounded by a host of men — and these he seemed 
to fell to the earth, one by one, as he hewed the rock. Often 
ill the middle of his work he would stop, throw down his 
pick-axe, and spread out his arms — but only to drop them 
with a deep groan, and wipe the sweat from his brow. 

The overseers did not know what to think of this pow- 
erful youth, who often was as gentle as a child, and then 
seemed possessed of that demon to which so many of the 
convicts fell victims.* He had indeed become a riddle to 
himself; for how was it that he — the gardener’s son, 
brought up in the peaceful temple of Seti — ever since that 
night by the house of the paraschites had had such a 
perpetual craving for conflict and struggle ? 

The weary gangs were gone to rest ; a bright fire 
still blazed in front of the house of the superintendent 
of the mines, and round it squatted in a circle the over- 
seers and the subalterns of the troops. 

“ Put the wine-jar round again,” said the captain, “ for 
we must hold grave council. Yesterday I had orders 
from the Regent to send half the guard to Pelusium. He 
requires soldiers, but we are so few in number that if the 

* The terrible fate of the Egyptian niinere is described in detail in a famous 
passage of Agatharchides of Kmdos, which is found in Diodorus 111 . 12. 13 and 
14. True, the passage does not refer to the mines here mentioned but the 
Ethiopian gold mines, rediscovered by Linant- Pacha and Bonomi in 1832 and 
1833, between the Nile and the Red Sea. The gold strata in the quartz rocks gf 
the Bischari district are now completely exhausted. 


UARDA. 


1^5 

convicts knew it they might make short work of us, even 
without arms. There are stones enough hereabouts, and 
by day they have their hammer and chisel.* Things are 
worst among the Hebrews in the copper-mines; they 
are a refractory crew that must be held tight. You know 
jme well, fear is unknown to me — but I feel great anxiety. 
The last fuel is now burning in this fire, and the smelting 
furnaces and the glass-foundry must not stand idle. To- 
morrow we must send men to Raphidim** to obtain char- 
coal from the Amalekites. They owe us a hundred loads 
still.*** Load the prisoners with some copper, to make 
them tired and the natives civil. What can we do to pro- 
cure what we want, and yet not to weaken the forces here 
too much ?” 

Various opinions were given, and at last it was settled 
that a small division, guarded by a few soldiers, should 
be sent out every day to supply only the daily need for 
charcoal. 

It was suggested that the most dangerous of the con- 
victs should be fettered together in pairs to perform their 
duties. 

The superintendent was of opinion that two strong 
men fettered together would be more to be feared if 
only they acted in concert. 

‘ Then chain a strong one to a weak one,” said the 
chief accountant of the mines, whom the Egyptians 
called the ‘scribe of the metals.’ “And fetter those to- 
gether who are enemies.” 

* The chisels were in the shape of swallow-tails. 

** The oasis at the foot of Horeb, where the Jews under Joshua’s com- 
mand conquered the Amalekites, while Aaron and Hur held up Moses’ arms. 
Exodus 17, 8. 

*** The Bedouins on the peninsula of Sinai at the present day make char- 
coal from the wood of the Sejal tree (Acacia tortilis Hayne) and bring it to the 
Cairo market. 


f66 


tJARDA. 


“ The colossal Huni, for instance, to that puny spai 
row, the stuttering Nebsecht,” said a subaltern. 

“ I was thinking of that very couple,” said the ac- 
countant laughing. 

Three other couples were selected, at first with some 
laughter, but finally with serious consideration, and 
Uarda’s father was sent with the drivers as an escort. 

On the following morning Pentaur and Nebsecht 
were fettered together with a copper chain, and when 
the sun was at its height four pairs of prisoners, heavily 
loaded with copper, set out for the Oasis of the Ama- 
lekites, accompanied by six soldiers and the son of the 
paraschites, to fetch fuel for the smelting furnaces. 

They rested near the town of Alus, and then went for- 
ward again between bare walls of greyish-green and red 
porphyry. These cliffs rose higher and higher, but from 
time to time, above the lower range, they could see the 
rugged summit of some giant of the range, though, bowed 
under their heavy loads, they paid small heed to it. 

The sun was near setting when they reached the 
little sanctuary of the ‘ Emerald- Hathor.’ 

A few grey and black birds here flew towards them, 
and Pentaur gazed at them with delight. 

How long he had missed the sight of a bird, and the 
sound of their chirp and song ! Nebsecht said : “ There 
are some birds — we must be near water.” 

And there stood the first palm-tree f 

Now the murmur of the brook was perceptible, and 
its tiny sound touched the thirsty souls of the travellers 
as rain falls on dry grass. 

On the left bank of the stream an encampment of 
Egyptian soldiers formed a large semicircle, enclosing 
three large tents made of costly material striped with 


tJARt)A. 


167 


blue and white, and woven with gold thread. Nothing 
was to be seen of the inhabitants of these tents, but 
when the prisoners had passed them, and the drivers 
were exchanging greetings with the out-posts, a girl, in 
the long robe of an Egyptian, came towards them, and 
looked at them. 

Pentaur started as if he had seen a ghost; but 
Nebsecht gave expression to his astonishment in a 
loud cry. 

At the same instant a driver laid his whip across 
their shoulders, and cried laughing : 

“You may hit each other as hard as you like with 
words, but not with your hands.” 

Then he turned to his companions, and said : 
“Did you see the pretty girl there, in front of the 
tent ? ” 

“It is nothing to us!” answered the man he 
addressed. “She belongs to the princess’s train. She 
has been three weeks here on a visit to the holy 
shrine of Hathor.” 

“She must have committed some heavy sin,” 
replied the other. “If she were one of us, she would 
have been set to sift sand in the diggings, or grind 
colors, and not be living here in a gilt tent. Where 
is our red-beard ? ” 

Uarda’s father had lingered a little behind the 
party, for the girl had signed to him, and exchanged 
a few words with him. 

“Have you still an eye for the fair ones?” asked 
the youngest of the drivers when he rejoined the 
gang. 

“She is a waiting maid of the princess,” replied 
the soldier not without embarrassment. “To-morrow 


i68 


UARDA. 


morning we are to carry a letter from her to the scribe 
of the mines, and if we encamp in the neighborhood she 
will send us some wine for carrying it.” 

^‘The old red-beard scents wine as a fox scents a 
goose. Let us encamp here; one never knows what 
may be picked up among the Mentu, and the superin- 
tendent said we were to encamp outside the oasis. 
Put down your sacks, men ! Here there is fresh water, 
and perhaps a few dates and sweet Manna* for you to 
eat with it. But keep the peace, you two quarrelsome 
fellows — Huni and Nebsecht.” 

Bent-Anat’s journey to the Emerald- Hath or was 
long since ended. As far as Keft** she had sailed down 
the Nile with her escort, from thence she had crossed the 
desert by easy marches, and slie had been obliged to wait 
a full week in the port on the Red Sea,*** which w'as 
chiefly inhabited by Phoenicians, for a ship which had fi- 
nally brought her to the little seaport of Pharan. From 
Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the oasis, where 
the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side. 

The old priests, who conducted the service of the 
Goddess, had received the daughter of Rameses with 
respect, and undertook to restore her to cleanness by 
degrees with the help of the water from the mountain - 
stream which watered the palm-grove of the Amale- 
kites, of incense-burning, of pious sentences, and of a 
hundred other ceremonies. At last the Goddess declared 
herself satisfied, and Bent-Anat wished to start for the 
north and join her father, but the commander of the 


* “ Man” is the name still given by the Bedouins of Sinai to the sweet 
gum which exudes from the Tamanx manmfera. It is the result of the puncture 
of an insect, and occurs chiefly in May. By many it is supposed to be the 
Manna of the Bible. 

** See note page 153 


Afterwards called Berenice. 


UARDA. 


169 


escort, a grey-headed Ethiopian field officer — who had 
been promoted to a high grade by Ani — explained to 
the Chamberlain that he had orders to detain the 
princess in the oasis until her departure was authorized 
by the Regent himself. 

Bent-Anat now hoped for the support of her father, 
for her brother Rameri, if no accident had occurred to 
him, might arrive any day. But in vain. 

The position of the ladies was particularly unpleas- 
ant, for they felt that they had been caught in a trap, and 
were in fact prisoners. In addition to this their Ethio- 
pian escort had quarrelled with the natives of the oasis, 
and every day skirmishes took place under their eyes — 
indeed lately one of these fights had ended in blood- 
shed. 

Bent-Anat was sick at heart. The two strong pinions 
of her soul, which had always borne her so high above 
other women — her princely pride and her bright frank- 
ness — seemed quite broken ; she felt that she had loved 
once, never to love again, and that she, who had sought 
none of her happiness in dreams, but all in work, had be- 
stowed the best half of her identity on a vision. Pen- 
taur’s image took a more and more vivid, and at the 
same time nobler and loftier, aspect in her mind ; but 
he himself had died for her, for only once had a letter 
reached them from Egypt, and that was from Katuti 
to Nefert. After telling her that late intelligence estab- 
lished the statement that her husband had taken a 
prince’s daughter, who had been made prisoner, to his 
tent as his share of the booty, she added the information 
that the poet Pentaur, who had been condemned to 
forced labor, had not reached the mountain mines, but, 
as was supposed, had perished on the road. 

33 


ttARDA. 


176 


Nefert still held to her immovable belief that hef 
husband was faithful to his love for her, and the magic 
charm of a nature made beautiful by its perfect mastery 
over a deep and pure passion made itself felt in these 
sad and heavy days. 

It seemed as though she had changed parts with 
Bent-Anat. Always hopeful, every day she foretold 
help from the king for the next; in truth she was ready 
to believe that, when Mena learned from Rameri that 
she was with the princess, he himself would come to 
fetch them if his duties allowed it. In her hours of 
most lively expectation she could go so far as to picture 
how the party in the tents would be divided, and who 
would bear Bent-Anat company if Mena took her with 
him to his camp, on what spot of the oasis it would be 
best to pitch it, and much more in the same vein. 

Uarda could very well take her place with Bent- 
Anat, for the child had developed and improved on the 
journey. The rich clothes which the princess had given 
her became her as if she had never worn any others ; 
she could obey discreetly, disappear at the right moment, 
and, when she was invited, chatter delightfully. Her 
laugh was silvery, and nothing consoled Bent-Anat so 
much as to hear it. 

Her songs too pleased the two friends, though the 
few that she knew were grave and sorrowful. She had 
learned them by listening to old Hekt, who often used 
to play on a lute in the dusk, and who, when she per- 
ceived that Uarda caught the melodies, had pointed out 
her faults, and given her advice. 

“ She may some day come into my hands,” thought 
the witch, “ and the better she sings, the better she will 
be paid.” 


UARDA. 


171 

Bent-Anat too tried to teach Uarda, but learning to 
read was not easy to the girl, however much pains she 
might take. Nevertheless, the princess would not give 
up the spelling, for here, at the foot of the immense 
sacred mountain at wliose summit she gazed with mixed 
horror and longing, she was condemned to inactivity, 
which weighed the more heavily on her in proportion 
as those feelings had to be kept to herself which she 
longed to escape from in work. Uarda knew the origin 
of her mistress’s deep grief, and revered her for it, as 
if it were something sacred. Often she would speak 
of Pentaur and of his father, and always in such a 
manner that the princess could not guess that she knew 
of their love. 

When the prisoners were passing Bent Anat’s tent, 
she was sitting within with Nefert, and talking, as had 
become habitual in the hours of dusk, of her father, of 
Mena, Rameri, and Pentaur. 

“ He is still alive,” asserted Nefert. “ My mother, 
you see, says that no one knows with certainty what 
became of him. If he escaped, he beyond a doubt tried 
to reach the king’s camp, and when we get there you 
will find him with your father.” 

The princess looked sadly at the ground. 

Nefert looked affectionately at her, and asked: 

“ Are you thinking of the difference in rank which 
parts you from the man you have chosen ?” 

“ The man to whom I offer my hand, I put in the 
rank of a prince,” said Bent-Anat. “ But if I could set 
Pentaur on a throne, as master of the world, he would 
still be greater and better than I.” 

But your father?” asked Nefert doubtfully. 

“ He is my friend, he will listen to me and under- 


172 


UARDA. 


Stand me. He shall know everything when I see him; 
1 know his noble and loving heart.” 

Both were silent for some time; then Bent-Anat 
spoke : 

“Pray have lights brought, I want to finish my 
weaving.” 

Nefert rose, went to the door of the tent, and there 
met Uarda; she seized Nefert’s hand, and silently drew 
her out into the air. 

“ What is the matter, child ? you are trembling,” 
Nefert exclaimed. 

“ My father is here,” answered Uarda hastily. “ He 
is escorting some prisoners from the mines of Mafkat. 
Among them there are two chained together, and one of 
them — do not be startled — one of them is the poet Pen- 
taur. Stop, for God’s sake, stop, and hear me. Twice 
before I have seen my father when he has been here with 
convicts. To-day we must rescue Pentaur; but the 
princess must know nothing of it, for if my plan fails — ” 

“Child! girl!” interrupted Nefert eagerly. “How 
can I help you ?” 

“ Order the steward to give the drivers of the gang 
a skin of wine in the name of the princess, and out of 
Eent-Anat’s case of medicines take the phial which con- 
tains the sleeping draught, which, in spite of your wish, 
she will not take. I will wait here, and I know how to 
use it.” 

Nefert immediately found the steward, and ordered 
him to follow Uarda with a skin of wine. Then she 
went back to the princess’s tent, and opened the medb 
cine case.* 

“What do you want?” asked Bent-Anat. 

* A medicine case, belonging to a more ancient period than the reign of R» 
meses, is preserved in the Berlin ^luseum. 


UARDA. 


173 


“A remedy for palpitation,” replied Nefert; she 
quietly took the flask she needed, and in a few min- 
utes put it into Uarda’s hand. 

The girl asked the steward to open the wine-skin, 
and let her taste the liquor. While she pretended to 
drink it, she poured the whole contents of the phial 
into the wine, and then let Bent-Anat’s bountiful pre- 
sent be carried to the thirsty drivers. 

She herself went towards the kitchen tent, and 
found a young Amalekite sitting on the ground with 
the princess’s servants. He sprang up as soon as he 
saw the damsel. 

“ I have brought four fine partridges,”* he said, 
“ which I snared myself, and I have brought this tur- 
quoise for you — my brother found it in a rock. This 
stone brings good luck, and is good for the eyes ; it 
gives victory over our enemies, and keeps away bad 
dreams.”** 

Thank you!” said Uarda, and taking the boy’s 
hand, as he gave her the sky-blue stone, she led him 
forward into the dusk. 

“ Listen, Salich — ” she said softly, as soon as she 
thought they were far enough from the others. “You 
are a good boy, and the maids told me that you said 
I was a star that had come down from the sky to be- 
come a woman. No one says such a thing as that of 
any one they do not like very much ; and I know you 
like me, for you show me that you do every day by 

* A brook springs on the peak called by the Sinaitic monks Mt. St. Katha- 
rine, which is called the partridge’s spring, and of which many legends are 
told. For instance, God created it for the partridges which accompanied the 
angels who carried St. Katharine of Alexandria to her tomb on Sinai. 

The turquoises of Serbal are finer and bluer than those of Wadi 
Maghara. The Arabs to this day believe ' in th? happy influences of the tur- 
quoise. 


174 


UARDA. 


bringing me flowers, when you carry the game that 
your father gets to the steward. Tell me, will you do 
me and the princess too a very great service? Yes? 
— and willingly? Yes? I knew you would! Now 
listen. A friend of the great lady Bent-Anat, who will 
come here to-night, must be hidden for a day, perhaps 
several days, from his pursuers. Can he, or rather can 
they, for there will probably be two, find shelter and 
protection in your father’s house, which lies high up 
there on the sacred mountain ?” 

“ Whoever I take to my father,” said the boy, “ will 
be made welcome ; and we defend our guests first, and 
then ourselves. Where are the strangers ?” 

“ They will arrive in a few hours. Will you wait 
here till the moon is well up ?” 

Till the last of all the thousand moons that vanish 
behind the hills is set.” 

“ Well then, wait on the other side of the stream, 
and conduct the man to your house, who repeats my 
name three times. You know my name ?” 

“ I call you Silver-star, but the others call you 
Uarda.” 

“ Lead the strangers to your hut, and, if they are 
received there by your father, come back and tell me. 
I will watch for you here at the door of the tent. I 
am poor, alas 1 and cannot reward you, but the prin- 
cess will thank your father as a princess should. Be 
watchful, Salich !” 

The girl vanished, and went to the drivers of the 
gang of prisoners, wished them a merry and pleasant 
evening, and then hastened back to Bent-Anat, who 
anxiously stroked her abundant hair^ and asked her 
why she was so pale. 


UARDA. 


05 


“ Lie down,” said the princess kindly, “ you are 
feverish. Only look, Nefert, I can see the blood cours- 
ing through the blue veins in her forehead.” 

Meanwhile the drivers drank, praised the royal 
wine, and the lucky day on which they drank it ; and 
when Uarda’s father suggested that the prisoners too 
should have a mouthful one of his fellow soldiers cried : 
“ Aye, let the poor beasts be jolly too for once.” 

The red-beard filled a large beaker, and offered it 
first to a forger and his fettered companion, then he 
approached Pentaur, and whispered — 

“ Do not drink any — keep awake !” 

As he was going to warn the physician too, one of 
his companions came between them, and offering his 
tankard to Nebsecht said : 

“ Here mumbler, drink ; see him pull ! His stutter- 
ing mouth is spry enough for drinking !” 


176 


UARDA. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


The hours passed gaily with the drinkers, then they 
grew more and more sleepy. 

Ere the moon was high in the heavens, while they 
were all sleeping, with the exception of Kaschta and 
Pentaur, the soldier rose softly. He listened to the 
breathing of his companions, then he approached the 
poet, unfastened the ring which fettered his ankle to 
that of Nebsecht, and endeavored to wake the physi- 
cian, but in vain. 

“ Follow me!’' cried he to the poet; he took Neb- 
secht on his shoulders, and went towards the spot near 
the stream which Uarda had indicated. Three times 
he called his daughter’s name, the young Amalekite ap- 
peared, and the soldier said decidedly : “ Follow this 
man, I will take care of Nebsecht.” 

“ I will not leave him,” said Pentaur. “ Perhaps 
water will wake him.” 

They plunged him in the brook, which half woke 
him, and by the help of his companions, who now 
pushed and now dragged him, he staggered and 
stumbled up the rugged mountain path, and before 
midnight they reached their destination, the hut of the 
Amalekite, 


UARDA. 


177 


The old hunter was asleep, but his son aroused 
him, and told him what Uarda had ordered and prom- 
ised. 

But no promises were needed to incite the worthy- 
mountaineer to hospitality. He received the poet with 
genuine friendliness, laid the sleeping leech on a mat, 
prepared a couch for Pentaur of leaves and skins,, 
called his daughter to wash his feet, and otfered him 
his own holiday garment in the place of the rags tliat 
covered his body. 

Pentaur stretched himself out on the humble couch, 
which to him seemed softer than the silken bed of a 
queen, but on which nevertheless he could not sleep, 
for the thoughts and fancies that filled his heart were 
too overpowering and bewildering. 

The stars still sparkled in the heavens when he 
sprang from his bed of skins, lifted Nebsecht on to it, 
and rushed out into the open air. A fresh mountain 
spring flowed close to the hunter’s hut. He went to 
it, and bathed his face in the ice-cold water, and let 
it flow over his body and limbs. He felt as if he must 
cleanse himself to his very soul, not only from the 
dust of many weeks, but from the rebellion and de- 
spondency, the ignominy and bitterness, and the con- 
tact with vice and degradation. 

When at last he left the spring, and returned to 
the little house, he felt clean and fresh as on the 
morning of a feast-day at the temple of Seti, when he 
had bathed and dressed himself in robes of snow- 
white linen. He took the hunter’s holiday dress, put 
it on, and went out of doors again. 

The enormous masses of rock lay dimly before 


UARDA. 


178 

him, like storm-clouds, and over his head spread the 
blue heavens with their thousand stars. 

The soothing sense of freedom and purity raised 
his soul, and the air that he breathed was so fresh 
and light, that he sprang up the path to the summit of 
the peak as if he were borne on wings or carried by 
invisible hands. 

A mountain goat which met him, turned from him, 
and fled bleating, with his mate, to a steep peak of 
rock, but Pentaur said to the frightened beasts : 

“ I shall do nothing to you — not I.” 

He paused on a little plateau at the foot of the 
jagged granite peak of the mountain. Here again he 
heard the murmur of a spring, the grass under his feet 
was damp, and covered with a film of ice, in which 
were mirrored the stars, now gradually fading. He 
looked up at the lights in the sky, those never-tarrying, 
and yet motionless wanderers — away, to the mountain 
heights around him — down, into the gorge below — 
and far off, into the distance. 

The dusk slowly grew into light, the mysterious 
forms of the mountain-chain took shape and stood up 
with their shining points, the light clouds were swept 
away like smoke. Thin vapors rose from the oasis 
and the other valleys at his feet, at first in heavy 
masses, then they parted and were wafted, as if in 
sport, above and beyond him to the sky. Far below 
him soared a large eagle, the only living creature far or 
near. 

A solemn and utter silence surrounded him, and 
when the eagle swooped down and vanished from his 
sight, and the mist rolled lower into the valley, he felt 


UARDA, 


179 


that here, alone, he was high above all other living 
beings, and standing nearer to the Divinity. 

He drew his breath fully and deeply, he felt as he 
had felt in the first hours after his initiation, when for 
the first time he was admitted to the holy of holies 
— and yet quite different. 

Instead of the atmosphere loaded with incense, he 
breathed a light pure air; and the deep stillness of the 
mountain solitude possessed his soul more strongly 
than the chant of the priests. 

Here, it seemed to him, that the Divine being 
would hear the lightest murmur of his lips, though 
indeed his heart was so full of gratitude and devotion 
that his impulse was to give expression to his mighty 
flow^ of feelings in jubilant song. But his tongue 
seemed tied ; he knelt down in silence, to pray and to 
praise. 

Then he looked at the panorama round him. 

Where was the east which in Egypt was clearly de- 
fined by the long Nile range? Down there where it 
was beginning to be light over the oasis. To his right 
hand lay the south, the sacred birth-place of the Nile, 
the home of the Gods of the Cataracts; but here 
flowed no mighty stream, and where was there a shrine 
for the visible manifestation of Osiris and Isis; of 
Horus, born of a lotus flower in a thicket of papyrus ; 
of Rennut, the Goddess of blessings, and of Zefa ? To 
which of them could he here lift his hands in prayer ? 

A faint breeze swept by, the mist vanished like a 
restless shade at the word of the exorcist, the many- 
pointed crown of Sinai stood out in sharp relief, and 
below them the winding valleys, and the dark colored 
rippling surface of the lake, became distinctly visible. 


i8o 


UARDA. 


All was silent, all untouched by the hand of man 
yet harmonized to one great and glorious whole, subject 
to all the laws of the universe, pervaded and filled by 
the Divinity. 

He would fain have raised his hand in thanks- 
giving to Apheru, “the Guide on the way;” but he 
dared not ; and how infinitely small did the Gods now 
seem to him, the Gods he had so often glorified to 
the multitude in inspired words, the Gods that had no 
meaning, no dwelling-place, no dominion but by the 
Nile. 

“To ye,” he murmured, “ I cannot pray ! Here 
where my eye can pierce the distance, as if I myself 
were a god — here I feel the presence of the One, here 
He is near me and with me — I will call upon Him 
and praise him !” 

And throwing up his arms he cried aloud: “Thou 
only One! Thou only One! Thou only One!” He 
said no more; but a tide of song welled up in his 
breast as he spoke — a flood of thankfulness and praise. 

When he rose from his knees, a man was standing 
by him ; his eyes were piercing and his tall figure had 
the dignity of a king, in spite of his herdsman’s dress. 

“ It is well for you !” said the stranger in deep 
slow accents. “ You seek the true God.” 

Pentaur looked steadily into the face of the bearded 
man before him. 

“ I know you now,” he said. “ You are Mesu.* I 
was but a boy when you left the temple of Seti, but 
your features are stamped on my soul. Ameni initiated 
me, as well as you, into the knowledge of the One 
God.” 


* Moses. 


UARDA. 


l8l 

‘‘ He knows Him not,” answered the other,, looking 
thoughtfully to the eastern horizon, which every mo- 
ment grew brighter. 

The heavens glowed with purple, and the granite 
peaks, each sheathed in a film of ice, sparkled and 
shone like dark diamonds that had been dipped in 
light. 

The day-star rose, and Pentaur turned to it, and 
prostrated himself as his custom was. When he rose, 
Mesu also was kneeling on the earth, but his back was 
turned to the sun. 

When he had ended his prayer, Pentaur said : 
“ Why do you turn your back on the manifestation of 
the Sun-god ? We were taught to look towards him 
when he approaches.” 

“ Because I,” said his grave companion, ‘‘ pray to 
another God than yours. The sun and stars are but 
as toys in his hand, the earth is his foot-stool, the 
storm is his breath, and the sea is in his sight as the 
drops on the grass.” 

“ Teach me to know' the Mighty One whom you 
worship !” exclaimed Pentaur. 

Seek him,” said Mesu, “ and you will find him ; 
for you have passed through misery and suffering, and 
on this spot on such a morning as this was He revealed 
to me.” 

The stranger turned away, and disappeared behind 
a rock from the enquiring gaze of Pentaur, who fixed 
his eyes on the distance. 

Then he thoughtfully descended the valley, and 
went tow'ards the hut of the hunter. He stayed his 
steps when he heard men’s voices, but the rocks hid 
the speakers from his sight. 


i 82 


UARDA. 


Presently he saw the party approaching ; the son of 
his host, a man in Egyptian dress, a lady of tall stat- 
ure, near whom a girl tripped lightly, and another 
carried in a litter by slaves. 

Pentaur’s heart beat wildly, for he recognized Bent* 
Anat and her companions. They disappeared by the 
hunter’s cottage, but he stood still, breathing painfully, 
spell-bound to the cliff by which he stood — a long, 
long time — and did not stir. 

He did not hear a light step, that came near to 
him, and died away again, he did not feel that the 
sun began to cast fierce beams on him, and on the 
porphyry cliff behind him, he did not see a woman 
now coming quickly towards him ; but, like a deaf man 
who has suddenly acquired the sense of hearing, he 
started when he heard his name spoken — by whose 
lips ? 

“ Pentaur !” she said again ; the poet opened his 
arms, and Bent- Anat fell upon his breast ; and he held 
her to him, clasped, as though he must hold her there 
and never part from her all his life long. 

Meanwhile the princess’s companions were resting 
by the hunter’s little house. 

“She flew into his arms — I saw it,” said Uarda. 
“ Never shall I forget it. It was as if the bright lake 
there had risen up to embrace the mountain.” 

“Where do you find such fancies, child?” cried 
Nefert. 

“ In my heart, deep in my heart!” cried Uarda. “I 
am so unspeakably happy.” 

“You saved him and rewarded him for his good- 
ness you may well be happy,” 


UARDA. 


^83 

It is not only that,” said Uarda. I was in despair, 
and now I see that the Gods are righteous and loving.” 

Mena’s wife nodded to her, and said with a sigh : 

“ They are both happy !” 

‘‘And they deserve to be!” exclaimed Uarda. “ I 
fancy the Goddess of Truth is like Bent-Anat, and 
there is not another man in Egypt like Pentaur.” 

Nefert was silent for awhile; then she asked softly : 
“ Did you ever see Mena ?” 

“ How should I ?” replied the girl. “ Wait a little 
while, and your turn will come. I believe that to-day 
I can read the future like a prophetess. But let us 
see if Nebsecht lies there, and is still asleep. The 
draught I put into the wine must have been strong.” 

“ It was,” answered Nefert, following her into the 
hut. 

The physician was still lying on the bed, and sleep- 
ing with his mouth wide open. Uarda knelt down by 
his side, looked in his face, and said : 

“ He is clever and knows everything, but how silly 
he looks now ! I will wake him.” 

She pulled a blade of grass out of the heap on 
which he was lying, and saucily tickled his nose. 

Nebsecht raised himself, sneezed, but fell back 
asleep again; Uarda laughed out with her clear silvery 
tones. Then she blushed — “That is not right,” she 
said, “ for he is good and generous.” 

She took the sleeper’s hand, pressed it to her lips, 
and wiped the drops from his brow. Then he awoke, 
opened his eyes, and muttered half in a dream still: 

“Uarda — sweet Uarda.” 

The girl started up and fled, and Nefert followed 
her. 


i84 


UARDA. 


When Nebsecht at last got upon his feet and looked 
round him, he found himself alone in a strange house. 
He went out of doors, where he found Bent-Anat’s 
little train anxiously discussing things past and to 
come. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

The inhabitants of the oasis had for centuries been 
subject to the Pharaohs, and paid them tribute; and 
among the rights granted to them in return, no Egyp- 
tian soldier might cross their border and territory 
without their permission. 

The Ethiopians had therefore pitched Bent-Anat’s 
tents and their own camp outside these limits ; but 
various transactions soon took place between the idle 
warriors and the Amalekites, which now and then led 
to quarrels, and which one evening threatened serious 
consequences, when some drunken soldiers had an- 
noyed the Amalekite women while they were drawing 
water. 

This morning early one of the drivers on awaking 
had missed Pentaur and Nebsecht, and he roused his 
comrades, who had been rejoined by Uarda’s father. 
The enraged guard of the gang of prisoners hastened 
to the commandant of the Ethiopians, and informed 
him that two of his prisoners had escaped, and were 
no doubt being kept in concealment by the Amale- 
kites. 

The Amalekites met the requisition to surrender 
the fugitives, of whom they knew nothings with words 
of mockery, which so enraged the officer that he deter- 


UARDA. 


■85 


mined to search the oasis throughout by force, and 
when he foimd his emissaries treated with scorn he 
advanced with the larger part of his troops on to the 
free territory of the Amalekites. 

■\ The sons of the desert flew to arms ; they retired 
before the close order of the Egyptian troops, who 
followed them, confident of victory, to a point where 
the valley widens and divides on each side of a rocky 
hill.* Behind this the larger part of the Amalekite forces 
were lying in ambush, and as soon as the unsuspicious 
Ethiopians had marched past the hill, they threw them- 
selves on the rear of the astonished invaders, while 
those in front turned upon them, and flung lances and 
arrows at the soldiers, of whom very few escaped. 

Among them, however, was the commanding officer, 
who, foaming with rage and only slightly wounded, put 
himself at the head of the remainder of Bent-Anat’s 
body-guard, ordered the escort of the prisoners also to 
follow him, and once more advanced into the oasis. 

That the princess might escape him had never for 
an instant occurred to him, but as soon as the last of 
her keepers had disappeared, Bent-Anat explained to 
her chamberlain and her companions that now dr never 
was the moment to fly. 

All her people were devoted to her; they loaded 
themselves with the most necessary things for daily use, 
took the litters and beasts ot burden with them, and 
while the battle was raging in the valley, Salich guided 
them up the heights of Sinai to his father’s house. 

It was on the way thither that Uarda had prepared 
the princess for the meeting she might expect at the 

* The modern hill of Meharret with the ruins of the church of the See of 
Pharan. 


UARDA. 


1 86 

hunter’s cottage, and we have seen how and where the 
princess found the poet. 

Hand in hand they wandered together along the 
mountain path till they came to a spot shaded by a 
projection of the rock; Pentaur pulled some moss to 
make a seat, they reclined on it side by side, and there 
opened their hearts, and told each other of their love 
and of their sufferings, their wanderings and escapes. 

At noonday the hunter’s daughter came to offer 
them a pitcher full of goat’s milk, and Bent-Anat filled 
the gourd again and again for the man she loved; and 
waiting upon him thus, her heart overflowed with pride, 
and his with the humble desire to be permitted to 
sacrifice his blood and life for her. 

Hitherto they had been so absorbed in the present 
and the past, that they had not given a thought to the 
future, and while they repeated a hundred times what 
each had long since known, and yet could never tire of 
hearing, they forgot the immediate danger which was 
hanging over them. 

After their humble meal, the surging flood of feeling 
which, ever since his morning devotions, had overwhelmed 
the poet’s soul, grew calmer; he had felt as if borne 
through the air, but now he set foot, so to speak, on the 
earth again, and seriously considered with Bent-Anat 
what steps they must take in the immediate future. 

The light of joy, which beamed in their eyes, was 
little in accordance with the grave consultation they 
held, as, hand in hand, they descended to the hut of 
their humble host. 

The hunter, guided by his daughter, met them 
half way, and with him a tall and dignified man in the 
full armor of a chief of the Amalekites. 


UARDA. 


187 


Both bowed and kissed the earth before Bent-Anat 
and Pentaur. They had heard that the princess was 
detained in the oasis by force by the Ethiopian troops, 
and the desert-prince, Abocharabos,* now informed 
them, not without pride, that the Ethiopian soldiers, all 
but a few who were his prisoners, had been exterminated 
by his people; at the same time he assured Pentaur, 
whom he supposed to be a son of the king, and Bent- 
Anat, that he and his were entirely devoted to the Pha- 
raoh Rameses, who had always respected their rights. 

“They are accustomed,” he added, “to fight against 
the cowardly dogs of Kush; but we are men, and we 
can fight like the lions of our wilds. If we are outnum- 
bered we hide like the goats in clefts of the rocks.” 

Bent-Anat, who was pleased with the daring man, 
his flashing eyes, his aquiline nose, and his brown face 
which bore the mark of a bloody sword-cut, promised 
him to commend him and his people to her father’s 
favor, and told him of her desire to proceed as soon as 
possible to the king’s camp under the protection of 
Pentaur, her future husband. 

The mountain chief had gazed attentively at Pen- 
taur and at Bent-Anat while she spoke; then he said: 

“Thou, princess, art like the moon, and thy com- 
panion is like the Sun- god Dusare. Besides Abocha- 
rabos,” and he struck his breast, “ and his wife, I know 
no pair that are like you two. I myself will conduct 
you to Hebron with some of my best men of war. 

*■ This name is genuine, for according to Procopius the Saracen chief Abo- 
charabos gave the palm-grove on the Sinai peninsular to Justinian. In the 
manuscripts it is Abocharagos; but Tuch has changed this, undoubtedly with 
good reason to Abocharabos. I'he inhabitants of this, country, called Mentu 
by the Egyptians, were in early times Sabeans, that is, worshippers of the heav- 
enly bodres We learn this with certainty from the inscriptions deciphered by 
Beer, where the authors of the records call themselves -servants,” “fearers,” 
or ‘ priests ■■ of the Sun, of Baal, etc. The Sun-god was called Dusare. 
The earliest qf these inscriptions dates from the ad century B. C. 


i88 


UARDA. 


But haste will be necessary, for I must be back before 
the traitor who now rules over Mizraim,* and who per- 
secutes you, can send fresh forces against us. Now you 
can go down again to the tents, not a hen is missing. 
To-morrow before daybreak we will be off.” 

At the door of the hut Pentaur was greeted by the 
princess’s companions. 

The chamberlain looked at him not without anxious 
misgiving. 

The king, when he departed, had, it is true, given 
him orders to obey Bent-Anat in every particular, as if 
she w'ere the queen herself; but her choice of such a 
husband was a thing unheard of, and how would the 
king take it ? 

Nefert rejoiced in the splendid person of the poet, 
and frequently repeated that he was as like her dead 
uncle — the father of Paaker, the chief-pioneer — as if 
he were his younger brother. 

Uarda never wearied of contemplating him and her 
beloved princess. She no longer looked upon him as a 
being of a higher order; but the happiness of the noble 
pair seemed to her an embodied omen of happiness for 
Nefert’s love — perhaps too for her own. 

Nebsecht kept modestly in the background. The 
headache, from which he had long been suffering, had 
disappeared in the fresh mountain air. When Pentaur 
offered him his hand he exclaimed : 

“ Here is an end to all my jokes and abuse ! A strange 
thing is this fate of men. Henceforth I shall always 
liave the worst qf it in any dispute with you, for all the 
discords of your life have been very prettily resolved 
by the great master of iiarmony, to whom you pray.' 

• The Semitic name for Egypt. 


UARDA. 189 

“ You speak almost as if you were sorry; but every 
thing will turn out happily for you too.” 

“ Hardly!” replied the surgeon, “ for now I see it ' 
clearly. Every man is a separate instrument, formed 
even before his birth, in an occult workshop, of good or 
bad wood, skilfully or unskilfully made, of this shape or 
the other; every thing in his life, no matter what we call 
it, plays upon him, and the instrument sounds for good or 
evil, as it is well or ill made. You are an ^olian harp 
— the sound is delightful, whatever breath of fate may 
touch it ; I am a weather-cock — I turn whichever way 
the wind blows, and try to point right, but at the same 
time I creak, so that it hurts my own ears and those of 
other people. I am content if now and then a steersman 
may set his sails rightly by my indication ; though after 
all, it is all the same to me. I will turn round and 
round, whether others look at me or no — What does 
it signify ?” 

When Pentaur and the princess took leave of the 
hunter with many gifts, the sun was sinking, and the 
toothed peaks of Sinai glowed like rubier, through 
which shone the glow of half a world on fire. 

The journey to the royal camp was begun the next 
morning. Abocharabos, the Amalekite chief, accom- 
panied the caravan, to which Uarda’s father also 
attached himself; he had been taken prisoner in the 
struggle with the natives, but at Bent-Anat’s request 
was set at liberty. 

At their first halting place he was commanded to 
explain how he had succeeded in having Pentaur taken 
to the mines, instead of to the quarries of Chennu. 

I knew,” said the soldier in his homely way, “from 


190 


UARDA. 


Uarda where this man, who had risked his life for us 
poor folks, was to be taken, and I said to myself — I 
must save him. But thinking is not my trade, and I 
never can lay a plot. It would very likely have come 
to some violent act, that would have ended badly, if I 
had not had a hint from another person, even before 
Uarda told me of what threatened Pentaur. This is 
how it was. 

“ I was to convoy the prisoners, who were con- 
demned to work in the Mafkat mines, across the river 
to the place they start from. In the harbor of Thebes, 
on the other side, the poor wretches were to take leave 
of their friends ; I have seen it a hundred times, and I 
never can get used to it, and yet one can get hardened 
to most things ! Their loud cries, and wild howls are 
not the worst — those that scream the most I have always 
found are the first to get used to their fate; but the 
pale ones, whose lips turn white, and whose teeth 
chatter as if they were freezing, and whose eyes stare 
out into vacancy without any tears — those go to my 
heart. 'Fhere was all the usual misery, both noisy and 
silent. But the man I was most sorry for was one I 
had known for a long time ; his name was Huni, and 
he belonged to the temple of Amon, where he held the 
place of overseer of the attendants on the sacred goat. 
I had often met him when I was on duty to watch the 
laborers who were completing the great pillared hall, 
and he was respected by every one, and never failed 
in his duty. Once, however, he had neglected it; it 
was that very night which you all will remember when 
the wolves broke into the temple, and tore the rams, and 
the sacred heart was laid in the breast of the prophet 
Rui. Some one, of course, must be punished, and it 


UARDA. 


I9I 

fell on poor Huni, who for his carelessness was con- 
demned to forced labor in the mines of Mafkat. His 
successor will keep a sharp look out! No one came 
to see him off, though I know he had a wife and 
several children. He was as pale as this cloth, and 
was one of the sort whose grief eats into their heart. 
I went up to him, and asked him why no one came 
with him. He had taken leave of them at home, he 
answered, that his children might not see him mixed 
up with forgers and murderers. Eight poor little brats 
were left unprovided for with their mother, and a little 
while before a fire had destroyed everything they pos- 
sessed: There was not a crumb to stop their little 
squalling mouths. He did not tell me all this straight 
out; a word fell from him now and then, like dates 
from a torn sack. I picked it up bit by bit, and when 
he saw I felt for him he grew fierce and said : ‘ They 
may send me to the gold mines or cut me to pieces, 
as far as I am concerned, but that the little Ones 
should starve that — that^ and he struck his forehead. 
Then I left him to say good bye to Uarda, and on 
the way I kept repeating to myself ^ that — that^ and 
saw before me the man and his eight brats. If I were 
rich, thought I, there is a man I would help. When I 
got to the little one there, she told me how much 
money the leech Nebsecht had given her, and offered 
to give it me to save Pentaur ; then it passed through 
my mind — that may go to H uni’s children, and in 
return he will let himself be shipped off to Ethiopia. 
I ran to the harbor, spoke to the man, found him 
ready and willing, gave the money to his wife, and at 
night when the prisoners were shipped I contrived the 
exchange. Pentaur came with me on my boat under 


ig2 


UARDA. 


the name of the other, and Huni went to the south, 
and was called Pentaur. I had not deceived the man 
into thinking he would stop at Chennu. I told him 
he would be taken on to Ethiopia, for it is always 
impossible to play a man false when you know it is 
quite easy to do it. It is very strange ! It is a real 
pleasure to cheat a cunning fellow or a sturdy man, 
but who would take in a child or a sick person ? Huni 
certainly would have gone into the fire-pots of hell 
without complaining, and he left me quite cheerfully. 
The rest, and how we got here, you yourselves know. 
In Syria at this time of year you will suffer a good 
deal from rain. I know the country, for I have escorted 
many prisoners of war into Egypt, and I was there five 
years with the troops of the great Mohar, father of the 
chief pioneer Paaker.” 

Bent-Anat thanked the brave fellow, and Pentaur 
and Nebsecht continued the narrative. 

“ During the voyage,” said Nebsecht, “ I was uneasy 
about Pentaur, for I saw how he was pining, but in the 
desert he seemed to rouse himself, and often whispered 
sweet little songs that he had composed while we 
marched.” 

“ That is strange,” said Bent-Anat, “ for I also got 
better in the desert.” 

“ Repeat the verses on the Beytharan plant,”* said 
Nebsecht. 

“ Do you know the plant ?” asked the poet. “ It 
grows here in many places; here it is. Only smell 
how sweet it is if you bruise the fleshy stem and 
leaves. My little verse is simple enough ; it occurred 


* Santolina fragrantissima. 


UARDA. 


193 


to me like many other songs of which you know all 
the best.” 

“They all praise the same Goddess,” said Nebsecht 
laughing. 

“ But let us have the verses,” said Bent-Anat. The 
poet repeated in a low voice — 

“ How often in the desert I have seen 
The small herb, Bey tharan, in modest green ' 

In every tiny leaf and gland and hair 
Sweet perfume is distilled, and scents the air. 

How is it that in barren sandy ground 
This little plant so sweet a gift has found? 

And that in me, in this vast desert plain. 

The sleeping gift of song awakes again ?” ' 

“ Do you not ascribe to the desert what is due to 
love ?” said Nefert. 

“ I owe it to both ; but I must acknowledge that 
the desert is a wonderful physician for a sick soul. 
We take refuge from the monotony that surrounds us 
in our own reflections; the senses are at rest; and here, 
undisturbed and uninfluenced from without, it is given 
to the mind to think out every train of thought to the 
end, to examine and exhaust every feeling to its finest 
shades. In the city, one is always a mere particle in 
a great whole, on which one is dependent, to which 
one must contribute, and from which one must accept 
something. The solitary wanderer in the desert stands 
quite alone; he is in a manner freed from the ties 
which bind him to any great human community; he 
must fill up the void by his own identity, and seek in 
it that which may give his existence significance and 
consistency. Here, where the present retires into the 
background, the thoughtful spirit finds no limits how- 
ever remote.” 

“Yes; one can think well in the desert,” said 


194 


UARDA. 


Nebsecht. ^‘Much has become clear to me here that 
in Egypt I only guessed at.” 

“What may that be?” asked Pentaur. 

“In the first place,” replied Nebsecht, “that we 
none of us really know anything rightly; secondly that 
the ass may love the rose, but the rose will not love 
the ass; and the third thing I will keep to myself, be- 
cause it is my secret, and though it concerns all the 
world no one would trouble himself about it. My lord 
chamberlain, how is this? You know exactly how 
low people must bow before the princess in proportion 
to their rank, and have no idea how a back-bone is 
made.” 

“Why should I?” asked the chamberlain. “I have 
to attend to outward things, while you are contem- 
plating inward things; else your hair might be smoother, 
and your dress less stained.” 

The travellers reached the old Cheta city of Hebron 
without accident; there they took leave of Abocha- 
rabos, and under the safe escort of Egyptian troops 
started again for the north. At Hebron Pentaur parted 
from the princess, and Bent-Anat bid him farewell 
without complaining. 

Uarda’s father, who had learned every path and 
bridge in Syria,- accompanied the poet, while the phy- 
sician Nebsecht remained with the ladies, whose good 
star seemed to have deserted them with Pentaur’s de- 
parture, for the violent winter rains which fell in the 
mountains of Samaria destroyed the roads, soaked 
through the tents, and condemned them frequently to 
undesirable delays. At Megiddo they were received 
with high honors by the commandant of the Egyptian 
garrison, and they were compelled to linger here some 


UARDA. 


195 


days, for Nefert, who had been particularly eager to 
hurry forward, was taken ill, and Nebsecht was obliged 
to forbid her proceeding at this season. 

Uarda grew pale and thoughtful, and Bent-Anat saw 
with anxiety .that the tender roses were fading from the 
cheeks of her pretty favorite; but when she questioned 
her as to what ailed her she gave an evasive answer. She 
had never either mentioned Rameri’s name before the prin- 
cess, nor shown her her mother’s jewel, for she felt as if all 
that had passed between her and the prince was a secret 
which did not belong to her alone. Yet another reason 
sealed her lips. She was passionately devoted to Bent- 
Anat, and she told herself that if the princess heard it all, 
she would either blame her brother or laugh at his affec- 
tion as at a child’s play, and she felt as if in that case 
she could not love Rameri’s sister any more. 

A messenger had been sent on from the first frontier 
station to the king’s camp to enquire by which road the 
princess, and her party should leave Megiddo.* But the 
emissary returned with a short and decided though affec- 
tionate letter written by the king’s own hand, to his daugh- 
ter, desiring her not to quit Megiddo, which was a safe 
magazine and arsenal for the army, strongly fortified and 
garrisoned, as it commanded the roads from the sea into 
North and Central Palestine. Decisive encounters, \\e 
said, were impending, and she knew that the Egyptians 
always excluded their wives and daughters from their 
war train, and regarded them as the best reward of vic- 
tory when peace was obtained. 

While the ladies were waiting in Megidd©, Pentaur 

* The Egyptian Maketha. A city of Palestine frequently mentioned on the 
Qionuments and which long before its restoration by Salomo 1 (Kings 9, 15,) pos- 
sessed great strategic importance. The great conquerors of the i8th dynasty 
( 16 centuries b. c. ) were obliged to besiege and capture it. 


96 


UARDA. 


and his red-bearded guide proceeded northwards with a 
small mounted escort, with which they were supplied by 
the commandant of Hebron. 

He himself rode with dignity, though this journey 
was the first occasion on which he had sat on horseback. 
He seemed to have come into the world with the art of 
riding born with him. As soon as he had learned from his 
companions how to grasp the bridle, and had made him- 
self familiar with the nature of the horse, it gave him the 
greatest delight to tame and subdue a fiery steed. 

He had left his priest’s robes in Egypt. Here he wore 
a coat of mail, a sword, and battle-axe like a warrior, 
and his long beard, which had grown during his captiv- 
ity, now flowed down over his breast. Uarda’s father 
often looked at him with admiration, and said : 

“ One might think the Mohar, with whom I often 
travelled these roads, had risen from the dead. He looked 
like you, he spoke like you, he called the men as you do, 
nay he sat as you do when the road was too bad for his 
chariot,* and he got on horseback, and held the reins.” 

None of Pentaur’s men, except his red-bearded friend, 
was more to him than a mere hired servant, and he usu- 
ally preferred to ride alone, apart from the little troop, 
musing on the past — seldom on the future — and gener- 
ally observing all that lay on his way with a keen eye. 

They soon reached Lebanon; between it and anti- 
Lebanon a road led through the great Syrian valley. It 
rejoiced him to see with his own eyes the distant shim- 
mer of the white snow-capped peaks, of which he had 
often heard warriors talk. 


' The Mohars used chariots in their journeys. This is positively known from 
the papyrus Anastasi I. which vividly describes the hardships experienced by a 
Mohar while travelling through Syria. 


i 


UARDA. 


197 


The country between the two mountain ranges was 
rich and fruitful, and from the heights waterfalls and 
torrents rushed into the valley. Many villages and 
towns lay on his road, but most of them had been 
damaged in the war. The peasants had been robbed 
of their teams of cattle, the flocks had been driven off 
from the shepherds, and when a vine-dresser, who was 
training his vine saw the little troop approaching, he 
fled to the ravines and forests. 

The traces of the plough and the spade were 
everywhere visible, but the fields were for the most 
part not sown; the young peasants were under arms, 
the gardens and meadows were trodden down by 
soldiers, the houses and cottages plundered and de^ 
stroyed, or burnt. Everything bore the trace of the 
devastation of the war, only the oak and cedar forests 
lorded it proudly over the mountain-slopes, planes and 
locust-trees grew in groves, and the gorges and rifts 
of the thinly-wooded limestone hills, which bordered 
the fertile low-land, were filled with evergreen brush- 
wood. 

At this time of year everything was moist and 
well-watered, and Pentaur compared the country with 
Egypt, and observed how the same results were 
attained here as there, but by different agencies. He 
remembered that morning on Sinai, and said to him- 
self again : “ Another God than ours rules here, and 
the old masters were not wrong who reviled godless 
strangers, and warned the uninitiated, to whom the 
secret of the One must remain unrevealed, to quit their 
home,” 

The nearer he approached the king’s camp, the 
more vividly he thought of Bent-Anat, and the faster 


VARDA. 


i9§ 

his heart beat from time to time when he thought of 
his meeting with the king. On the whole he was full 
of cheerful confidence, which he felt to be folly, and 
which nevertheless he could not repress. 

Ameni had often blamed him for his too great 
diffidence and his want of ambition, when he had 
willingly let others pass him by. He remembered this 
now, and smiled and understood himself less than ever, 
for though he resolutely repeated to himself a hundred 
times that he was a low-born, poor, and excommuni- 
cated priest, the feeling would not be smothered that 
he had a right to claim Bent-Anat for his own. 

And if the king refused him his daughter — if he 
made him pay for his audacity with his life ? 

Not an eyelash, he well knew, would tremble under 
the blow of the axe, and he would die content; for 
that which she had granted him was his, and no God 
could take it from him ! 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Once or twice Pentaur and his companions had had 
to defend themselves against hostile mountaineers, who 
rushed suddenly upon them out of the woods. When 
they were about two days’ journey still from the end of 
their march, they had a bloody skirmish with a roving 
band of men that seemed to belong to a larger detach- 
ment of troops. 

The nearer they got to Kadesh, the more familiar 
Kaschta showed himself with every stock and stone, 
and he went forward to obtain information; he re- 
turned somewhat anxious, for he had perceived the 


uardA. 


10^ 

main body of the Cheta army on the road which they 
must cross. How came the enemy here in the rear of 
the Egyi)tian army ? Could Rameses have sustained a 
defeat ? 

Only the day before they had met some Egyptian 
soldiers, who had told them that the king was staying 
in the camp, and a great battle was impending. This 
however could not have by this time been decided, 
and they had met no flying Egyptians. 

“ If we can only get two miles farther without hav- 
ing to fight,” said Uarda’s father. “I know what to 
do. Down below, there lies a ravine, and from it a 
path leads over hill and vale to the plain of Kadesh. 
No one ever knew it but the Mohar and his most con- 
fidential servants. About half-way there is a hidden 
cave, in which we have often stayed the whole day 
long. The Cheta used to believe that the Mohar pos- 
sessed magic powers, and could make himself in- 
visible, for when they lay in wait for us on the way 
we used suddenly to vanish ; but certainly not into the 
clouds, only into the cave, which the Mohar used to 
call his Tuat.* If you are not afraid of a climb, and 
will lead your horse behind you for a mile or two, I 
can show you the way, and to-morrow evening we will 
be at the camp.” 

Pentaur let his guide lead the way; they came, 
without having occasion to fight, as far as the gorge 
between the hills, through which a full and foaming 
mountain torrent rushed to the valley. Kaschta dropped 
from his horse, and the others did the same. After 
the horses had passed through the water, he carefully 
effaced their tracks as far as the road, then for about 

* Tuat— the nether-world, the abyss. 


200 


UARDA. 


half a mile he ascended the valley against the stream. 
At last he stopped in front of a thick oleander-bush, 
looked carefully about, and lightly pushed it aside; 
when he had found an entrance, his companions and 
their weary scrambling beasts followed him without 
difficulty, and they presently found themselves in a 
grove of lofty cedars. Now they had to squeeze 
themselves between masses of rock, now they labored 
up and down over smooth pebbles, which offered 
scarcely any footing to the horses’ hoofs ; now they 
had to push their way through thick brushwood*, and 
now to cross little brooks swelled by the winter-rains. 

The road became more difficult at every step, then 
it began to grow dark, and heavy drops of rain fell 
from the clouded sky. 

“ Make haste, and keep close to me,” cried Kaschta. 
“ Half an hour more, and we shall be under shelter, if 
I do not lose my way.” 

Then a horse broke down, and with great difficulty 
was got up again ; the rain fell with increased violence, 
the night grew darker, and the soldier often found 
himself brought to a stand-still, feeling for the path 
with his hands ; twice he thought he had lost it, but 
he would not give in till he had recovered the track. 
At last he stood still, and called Pentaur to come to 
him. 

“ Hereabouts,” said he, “ the cave must be ; keep 
close to me — it is possible that we may come upon 
some of the pioneer’s people. Provisions and fuel 
were always kept here in his father’s time. Can you 
see me? Hold on to my girdle, and bend your head low 
till I tell you you may stand upright again. Keep your 


UARDA. 


201 


axe ready, we may find some of the Cheta or bandits 
roosting there. You people must wait, we will soon call 
you to come under shelter.” 

Pentaur closely followed his guide, pushing his way 
through the dripping brushwood, crawling through a 
low passage in the rock, and at last emerging on a 
small rocky plateau. 

“Take care where you are going!” cried Kaschfa. 
“ Keep to the left, to the right there is a deep abyss. 
I smell smoke! Keep your hand on your axe, there 
must be some one in the cave. Wait ! I will fetch the 
men as far as this.” ^ 

The soldier went back, and Pentaur listened for 
any sounds that might come from the same direction 
as the smoke. He fancied he could perceive a small 
gleam of light, and he certainly heard quite plainly, 
first a tone of complaint, then an angry voice; he went 
towards the light, feeling his way by the wall on his 
left ; the light shone broader and brighter, and seemed 
to issue from a crack in a door. 

By this time the soldier had rejoined Pentaur, and 
both listened for a few minutes ; then the poet whis- 
pered to his guide : 

“They are speaking Egyptian, I caught a few 
words.” 

.“ All the better,” said Kaschta. “ Paaker or some 
of his people are in there ; the door is there still, and 
shut. If we give four hard and three gentle knocks, 
it will be opened. Can you understand what they are 
saying ?” 

“ Some one is begging to be set free,” replied Pen- 
taur, “and speaks of some traitor. The other has a 
rough voice, and says he must follow his master’s 
35 


UARDA. 


orders. Now the one who spoke before Is crying; do 
you hear ? He is entreating him by the soul of his 
father to take his fetters off. How despairing his voice 
is ! Knock, Kaschta — it strikes me we are come at the 
right moment — knock, I say.” 

The soldier knocked first four times, then three 
times. A shriek rang through the cave, and they could 
h^ir a heavy, rusty bolt drawn back, the roughly hewn 
door was opened, and a hoarse voice asked : 

“Is that Paaker ?” 

“No,” answered the soldier, “I am Kaschta. Do 
not you know me again, Nubi 

The man thus addressed, who was PaakePs Ethio- 
pian slave, drew back in surprise. 

“ Are you still alive ?” he exclaimed. “ What brings 
you here?” 

“ My lord here will tell you,” answered Kaschta as 
he made way for Pentaur to enter the cave. The poet 
went up to the black man, and the light of the fire 
which burned in the cave fell full on his face. 

The old slave stared at him, and drew back in 
astonishment and terror. He threw himself on the 
earth, howled like a dog that fawns at the feet of his 
angry master, and cried out : 

“ He ordered it — Spirit of my master ! he ordered it.” 

Pentaur stood still, astounded and incapable of 
speech, till he perceived a young man, who crept up 
to him on his hands and feet, which were bound with 
thongs, and who cried to him in a tone, in which terror 
was mingled with a tenderness which touched Pentaur’s 
very soul: 

“ Save me — Spirit of the Mohar ! save me, father !” 
Then the poet spoke. 


UARDA. 


203 


I am no spirit of the dead/' said he. “ I am the 
priest Pentaur; and I know you, boy; you are Horus, 
Paaker’s brother, who was brought up with me in the 
temple of Seti.” 

The prisoner approached him trembling, looked at 
him enquiringly and exclaimed : 

“ Be you who you may, you are exactly like my 
father in person and in voice. Loosen my bonds, and 
listen to me, for the most hideous, atrocious, and ac- 
cursed treachery threatens us — the king/ and all." 

Pentaur drew his sword, and cut the leather thongs 
which bound the young man’s hands and feet. He 
stretched his released limbs, uttering thanks to the 
Gods, then he cried : 

“If you love Egypt and the king follow me; per- 
haps there is yet time to hinder the hideous deed, and 
to frustrate this treachery." 

“ The night is dark," said Kaschta, “ and the road 
to the valley is dangerous." 

“ You must follow me if it is to your death ! " cried 
the youth, and, seizing Pentaur’s hand, he dragged him 
with him out of the cave. 

As soon as the black slave had satisfied himself 
that Pentaur was the priest whom he had seen fighting 
in front of the paraschites’ hovel, and not the ghost of 
his dead master, he endeavored to slip past Paaker’s 
brother, but Horus observed the manoeuvre, and seized 
him by his woolly hair. The slave cried out loudly, 
and whimpered out : 

“ If thou dost escape, Paaker will kill me ; he swore 
he would." 

“ Wait !" said the youth. He dragged the slave bagk, 


204 


UARDA. 


flung him into the cave, and blocked up the door with 
a huge log which lay near it for that purpose. 

When the three men had crept back through the 
low passage in the rocks, and found themselves once 
more in the open air, they found a high wind was 
blowing. 

“ The storm will soon be over,” said Horus. “ See 
how the clouds are driving ! Let us have horses, Pen- 
taur, for there is not a minute to be lost.” 

The poet ordered Kaschta to summons the people 
to start but the soldier advised differently. 

“ Men and horses are exhausted,” he said, “ and 
we shall get on very slowly in the dark. Let the 
beasts feed for an hour, and the men get rested and 
warm ; by that time the moon will be up, and we shall 
make up for the delay by having fresh horses, and 
light enough to see the road.” 

“The man is right,” said Horus; and he led 
Kaschta to a cave in the rocks, where barley and dates 
for the horses, and a few jars of wine, had been pre- 
served. They soon had lighted a fire, and while some 
of the men took care of the horses, and others cooked 
a warm mess of victuals, Horus and Pentaur walked 
up and down impatiently. 

“ Had you been long bound in those thongs when 
we came ?” asked Pentaur. 

“Yesterday my brother fell upon me,” replied 
Horus. “ He is by this time a long way ahead of us, 
and if he joins the Cheta, and we do not reach the 
Egyptian camp before daybreak, all is lost.” 

“ Paaker, then, is plotting treason ?” 

“ Treason, the foulest, blackest treason !” exclaimed 
the young man. “ Oh, my lost father ! — ” 


UARDA. 


205 


Confide in me,” said Pentaur going up to the un- 
happy youth who had hidden his face in his hands. 
“ What is Paaker plotting ? How is it that your brother 
is your enemy ?” 

“ He is the elder of us two,” said Horus with a 
trembling voice. “ When my father died I had only a 
short time before left the school of Seti, and with his 
last words my father enjoined me to respect Paaker as 
the head of our family. He is domineering and violent, 
and will allow no one’s will to cross his; but I bore 
everything, and always obeyed him, often against my 
better judgment. I remained with him two years, 
then I went to Thebes, and there I married, and my 
wife and child are now living there with my mother. 
About sixteen months afterwards I came back to Syria, 
and we travelled through the country together ; but by 
this time I did not choose to be the mere tool of my 
brother’s will, for I had grown prouder, and it seemed 
to me that the father of my child ought not to be sub- 
servient, even to his own brother. We often quarrelled, 
and had a bad time together, and life became quite 
unendurable, when — about eight weeks since — Paaker 
came back from Thebes, and the king gave him to 
understand that he approved more of my reports than of 
his. From my childhood I have always been soft- 
hearted and patient; every one says I am like my 
mother; but what Paaker made me suffer by words 
and deeds, that is — I could not — ” His voice broke, 
and Pentaur felt how cruelly he had suffered ; then he 
went on again : 

“ What happened to my brother in Egypt, I do not 
know, for he is very reserved, and asks for no sympathy, 
either in joy or in sorrow; but from wprds he h^s 


2o6 


UARDA. 


dropped now and then I gather that he not only bit- 
terly hates Mena, the charioteer — who certainly did 
him an injury — ^but has some grudge against the king 
too. I spoke to him of it at once, but only once, for his 
rage is unbounded when he is provoked, and after all 
he is my elder brother. 

“ For some days they have been preparing in the 
camp for a decisive battle, and it was our duty to 
ascertain the position and strength of the enemy ; the 
king gave me, and not Paaker, the commission to pre- 
pare the report. Early yesterday morning I drew it 
out and wrote it; then my brother said he would carry 
it to the camp, and I was to wait here. I positively re- 
fused, as Rameses had required the report at my hands, 
and not at his. Well, he raved like a madman, de- 
clared that I had taken advantage of his absence to 
insinuate myself into the king’s favor, and commanded 
me to obey him as the head of the house, in the name 
of my father. 

“ I was sitting irresolute, when he went out of the 
cavern to call his horses; then my eyes fell on the 
things which the old black slave was tying together 
to load on a pack-horse — among them was a roll of 
writing. I fancied it was my own, and took it up to 
look at it, when — what should I find ? At the risk of 
my life I had gone among the Cheta, and had found 
that the main body of their army is collected in a 
cross-valley of the Orontes, quite hidden in the moun- 
tains to the north-east of Kadesh ; and in the roll it 
was stated, in Paaker’s own hand-writing, that that 
valley is clear, and the way through it open, and well 
suited for the passage of the Egyptian war-chariots; 
various other false details were given, and when I 


UARDA. 


207 


looked further among his things, I found between the 
arrows in his quiver, on w'hich he had wTitten ‘ death 
to Mena,’ another little roll of writing. I tore it open, 
and my blood ran cold when I saw to whom it was 
addressed.” 

“ TTo the king of the Cheta ?” cried Pentaur in ex- 
citement. 

“To his chief officer, Titure,”* continued Horus. 
“ I was holding both the rolls in my hand, when Paaker 
came back into the cave. ‘ Traitor !’ I cried out to 
him; but he flung the lasso, with which he had been 
catching the stray horses, threw it round my neck, and 
as I fell choking on the ground, he and the black man, 
who obeys him like a dog, bound me hand and foot ; 
he left the old negro to keep guard over me, took the 
rolls and rode away. Look, there are the stars, and 
the moon will soon be up.” 

“ Make haste, men !” cried Pentaur. “ The three 
best horses for me, Horus, and Kaschta; the rest remain 
here.” 

As the red-bearded soldier led the horses forward, 
the moon shone forth, and within an hour the travellers 
had reached the plain ; they sprang on to the beasts and 
rode madly on towards the lake, which, when the sun 
rose, gleamed before them in silvery green. As tiiey 
drew near to it they could discern, on its treeless 
western shore, black masses moving hither and thither ; 
clouds of dust rose up from the plain, pierced by flashes 
of light, like the rays of the sun reflected from a mov- 
ing mirror. 


* This name occurs among the Cheta on the triumphal Monuments of the 
Ramesseum. 


2o8 


UARDA. 


“The battle is begun!” cried Horus; and befell 
sobbing on his horse’s neck. 

“ But all is not lost yet !” exclaimed the poet, 
spurring his horse to a final effort of strength. His 
companions did the same, but first Kaschta’s horse fell 
under him, then Horus’s broke down. 

“ Help may be given by the left wing !” cried Horus. 
“ I will run as fast as I can on foot, I know where to 
find them. You will easily find the king if you follow 
the stream to the stone bridge. In the cross-valley 
about a thousand paces farther north — to the north- 
west of our stronghold — the surprise is to be effected. 
Try to get through, and warn Rameses ; the Egyptian 
pass- word is ‘ Bent-Anat,’ the name of the king’s fa- 
vorite daughter. But even if you had wings, and 
could fly straight to him, they would overpower him 
if I cannot succeed in turning the left wing on the 
rear of the enemy.” 

Pentaur galloped onwards ; but it was not long be- 
fore his horse too gave way, and he ran forward like 
a man who runs a race, and shouted the pass-word 
“ Bent-Anat ” — for the ring of her name seemed to give 
him vigor. Presently he came upon a mounted mes- 
senger of the enemy ; he struck him down from his 
horse, flung himself into the saddle, and rushed on 
towards the camp, as if he were riding to his wedding. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

During the night which had proved so eventful to 
our friends, much had occurred in the king’s camp, 
for the troops were to advance to the long-anticipated 
battle before sunrise. 


UARDA. 


209 

Paaker had given his false report of the enemy’s 
movements to the Pharaoh with his own hand ; a 
council of war had been held, and each division had 
received instructions as to where it was to take up its 
position. The corps, which bore the name of the Sun- 
god Ra, advanced from the south towards Schabatun,* 
so as to surround the lake on the east, and fall on the 
enemy’s flank ; the corps of Seth, composed of men 
from lower Egypt, was sent on to Arnam to form the 
centre ; the king himself, with the flower of the chariot- 
guard, proposed to follow the road through the valley, 
which Paakar’s report represented as a safe and open 
passage to the plain of the Orontes. Thus, while the 
other divisions occupied the enemy, he could cross the 
Orontes by a ford, and fall on the rear of the fortress 
of Kadesh from the north-west. The corps of Amon, 
with the Ethiopian mercenaries, were to support him, 
joining him by another route, which the pioneer’s false 
indications represented as connecting the line of opera- 
tions. The corps of Ptah remained as a reserve be- 
hind the left wing. 


* Kadesh was the chief city of the Cheta, i. e. Aramaeans, round which 
the united forces of all the peoples of western Asia had collected. There were 
several cities called Kadesh. That which frequently checked the forces of 
ThotmesIIT. may have h»een situated farther to the south; but the Cheta city 
of Kadesh, where Rameses II. fought so hard a battle, was undoubtedly on the 
Orontes, for the river which is depicted on the pylon of the Rames.seum as 
parting into two streams which wash the walls of the fortress, is called Aruntha, 
and in the Epos of Pentaur it is stated that this battle took place at Kadesh 
by the Orontes. The name of the city survives, at a spot just three miles 
north of the lake of Riblah. The battle itself I have described from the epos 
of Pentaur. the national epic of Egypt. It ends with these words: “ This was 
written and made by the scribe Pentaur.” It was so highly esteemed that it is 
engraved in stone twice at I.uqsor, and once at Karnak. Copies of it on 
papyrus are frequent: for instance, papyrus Sallier III. and papyrus Raifet — 
unfortunately much injured — in the Louvre. The principal incident, the 
rescue of the king from the enemy, is repeated at the Ramesseum at Thebes, 
and at Abu Simbel. It was translated into French by Vicomte E. de Rouge. 
I'he camp of Rameses is depicted on the pylons of Luqsor and the Ramesseum. 


*»■ 




210 


X)ARDA. 


The soldiers had not gone to rest as usual; heavily- 
armed troops, who bore in one hand a shield of half a 
man’s height, and in the other a scimitar, or a short, pointed 
sword, guarded the camp,* where numerous fires burned, 
round which crowded the resting warriors. Here a 
wine-skin was passed from hand to hand, there a joint 
was roasting on a wooden spit; farther on a party were 
throwing dice for the booty they had won, or playing at 
morra. All was in eager activity, and many a scuffle oc- 
curred among the excited soldiers, and had to be settled 
by the camp-watch. 

Near the enclosed plots, where the horses were teth- 
ered, the smiths were busily engaged in shoeing the beasts 
which needed it, and in sharpening the points of the 
lances ; the servants of the chariot-guard were also fully 
occupied, as the chariots had for the most part been 
brought over the mountains in detached pieces on the 
backs of pack-horses and asses,** and now had to be 
put together again, and to have their wheels greased. On 
the eastern side of the camp stood a canopy, under which 
the standards were kept, and there numbers of priests 
were occupied in their office of blessing the warriors, of- 
fering sacrifices, and singing hymns and litanies. But 
these pious sounds were frequently overpowered by the 
loud voices of the gamblers and revellers, by the blows of 
the hammers, the hoarse braying of the asses, and the 
neighing of the horses. From time to time also the deep 
roar of the king’s war-lions*** might be heard ; these 
beasts followed him into the fight, and were now howling 
for food, as they had been kept fasting to excite their fury. 

* Representations of Rameses’ camp are preserved on the pylons of the 
temple of Luxor and the Ramesseum. 

** The different parts of dismembered chariots are represented as being 
carried on asses in the picture of the camp in the Ramesseum. 

*** See Diodorus, I. 47. Also the pictures of the king rushing to the fight. 


UARDA. 


2II 


In the midst of the camp stood the king’s tent, 
surrounded by foot and chariot-guards. The auxiliary 
troops were encamped in divisions according to their 
nationality, and between them the Egyptian legions of 
heavy- armed soldiers and archers. Here might be 
seen the black Ethiopian with wooly matted hair, in 
which a few feathers were stuck — the handsome, well* 
proportioned “ Son of the desert ” from the sandy Ara- 
bian shore of the Red Sea, who performed his wild 
war-dance flourishing his lance, with a peculiar wriggle 
of his hips — pale Sardinians, with metal helmets and 
heavy swords — light colored Libyans, with tattooed 
arms and ostrich-feathers on their heads — brown, 
bearded Arabs, worshippers of the stars, inseparable 
from their horses, and armed, some with lances, and 
some with bows and arrows. And not less various than 
their aspect were the tongues of the allied troops — ^but 
all obedient to the king’s word of command. 

In the midst of the royal tents was a lightly con- 
structed temple with the statues of the Gods of Thebes, 
and of the king’s forefathers ; clouds of incense rose in 
front of it, for the priests were engaged from the eve 
of the battle until it was over, in prayers, and offerings 
to Amon, the king of the Gods, to Necheb, the God- 
dess of victory, and to Menth, the God of war. 

The keeper of the lions stood by the Pharaoh’s 
sleeping-tent, and the tent, which served as a council- 
chamber, was distinguished by the standards in front 
of it : but the council-tent was empty and still, while\ 
in the kitchen-tent, as well as in the wine-store close 
by, all was in a bustle. The large pavilion, in which 
Rameses and his suite were taking their evening meal, 
was more brilliantly lighted than all the others; it was 


212 


UARDA. 


a covered tent, a long square in shape, and all round 
it were colored lamps, which made it as light as day; 
a body-guard of Sardinians, Libyans, and Egyptians 
guarded it with drawn swords, and seemed too wholly 
^ absorbed w'ith the importance of their ofhce even to 
notice the dishes and wine-jars, which the king’s pages 
— the sons of the highest families in Egypt — took at 
the tent-door from the cooks and butlers. 

The walls and slanting roof of this quickly-built 
and movable banqueting-hall, consisted of a strong, 
impenetrable carpet-stuff, woven at Thebes, and after- 
wards dyed purple at Tanis by the Phoenicians. Saitic 
artists had embroidered the vulture, one of the forms in 
which Necheb appears, a hundred times on the costly 
material with threads of silver. The cedar-wood pillars 
of the tent were covered with gold, and the ropes, 
which secured the light erection to the tent-pegs, were 
twisted of silk, and thin threads of silver.* Seated 
round four tables, more than a hundred men were 
taking their evening meal ; at three of them the generals 
of the army, the chief priests, and councillors, sat on 
. light stools ; at the fourth, and at some distance from 
the others, were the princes of the blood ; and the king 
himself sat apart at a high table, on a throne supported 
by gilt figures of Asiatic prisoners in chains. His table 
and throne stood on a low dais covered with panther-skin ; 
but even without that Rameses would have towered above 
his companions. His form was powerful, and there was a 
commanding aspect in his bearded face, and in the higli 
brow, crowned with a golden diadem adorned with the 
heads of two Uraeus-snakes, wearing the crowns of Up- 
per and Lower Egypt. A broad collar of precious stones 

* Silk was certainly known in the time of the Ptolemies. The transparent 
Bowhyx tissues of Cos were celebrated. Pariset, Histoire de la Soie, 1862. 


UARDA. 


213 


covered half his breast, the lower half was concealed by 
a scarf or belt, and his bare arms were adorned with 
bracelets. His finely-proportioned limbs looked as if 
moulded in bronze, so smoothly were the powerful 
muscles covered with the shining copper-colored skin. 
Sitting here among those who were devoted to him, he 
looked with kind and fatherly pride at his blooming sons. 

The lion was at rest — but nevertheless he was a 
lion, and terrible things might be looked for when he 
should rouse himself, and when the mighty hand, which 
now dispensed bread, should be clenched for the fight. 
There was nothing mean in this man, and yet nothing 
alarming; for, if his eye had a commanding sparkle, 
the expression of his mouth was particularly gentle; and 
the deep voice which could make itself heard above the 
clash of fighting men, could also assume the sweetest 
and most winning tones. His education had not only 
made him well aware of his greatness and power, but 
had left him also a genuine man, a stranger to none 01 
the emotions of the human soul. 

Behind Pharaoh stood a man, younger than himself, 
who gave him his wine-cup after first touching it witli 
his own lips ; this was Mena, the king’s charioteer and 
favorite companion. His figure w^as slight and yet 
vigorous, supple and yet dignified, and his finely-formed 
features and frank bright eyes were full at once of self- 
respect and of benevolence. Such a man might fail in 
reflection and counsel, but would be admirable as an 
honorable, staunch, and faithful friend. 

Among the princes, Chamus* sat nearest to the king; 

* He is named Cha-em-Us on the monuments, i. e., ‘splendor in Thebes. 
He became the Sam, or high-priest of Memphis. His umnuny was discovered 
by Mariette in the tomb of Apis at Saqqarah during his excavations of the 
iierapeum at Memphis. 


214 


UARDA. 


he was the eldest of his sons, and while still young had 
been invested with the dignity of high-priest of Mem- 
phis. The curly-haired Rameri, who had been rescued 
from imprisonment — into which he had fallen on his 
journey from Egypt — had been assigned a place with 
the younger princes at the lowest end of the table. 

“ It all sounds very threatening ! ” said the king. 
“But though each of you croakers speaks the truth, 
your love for me dims your sight. In fact, all that 
Rameri has told me, that Bent-Anat writes, that Mena’s 
stud-keeper says of Ani, and that comes through other 
channels — amounts to nothing that need disturb us. I 
know your uncle — I know that he will make his borrowed 
throne as wide as he possibly can ; but when we return 
home he will be quite content to sit on a narrow seat 
again. Great enterprises and daring deeds are not 
what he excels in ; but he is very apt at carrying out a 
ready-made system, and therefore I choose him to be 
my Regent.” 

“ But Ameni,” said Chamus, bowing respectfully to 
his father, “ seems to have stirred up his ambition, and 
to support him with his advice. The chief of the 
House of Seti is a man of great ability, and at least 
half of the priesthood are his adherents.” 

“ I know it,” replied the king. “ Their lordships 
owe me a grudge because I have called their serfs to 
arms, and they want them to till their acres. A pretty 
sort of people they have sent me! their courage flies 
with the first arrow. They shall guard the camp to- 
morrow ; they will be equal to that when it is made 
clear to their understanding that, if they let the tents 
be taken, the bread, meat and wines-skins will also fall 
into the hands of the enemy. If Kadesh is taken by 


tJARDA. 


215 

Storm, the temples of the Nile shall have the greater 
part of the spoil, and you yourself, my young high- 
priest of Memphis, shall show your colleagues that 
Raineses repays in bushels that which he has taken in 
handfuls from the ministers of the Gods.” 

“ Ameni’s disaffection,” replied Chamus, “ has a 
deeper root ; thy mighty spirit seeks and finds its own 
way — ” 

“ But their lordships,” interrupted Rameses, “ are 
accustomed to govern the king too, and I — I do not 
do them credit. I rule as vicar of the Lord of the 
Gods, but — I myself am no God, though they attribute 
to me the honors of a divinity ; and in all humility of 
heart I willingly leave it to them to be the mediators 
between the Immortals and me or my people. Human 
affairs certainly I choose to manage in my own way. 
And now no more of them. I cannot bear to doubt 
my friends, and trustfulness is so dear, so essential to 
me, that I must indulge in it even if my confidence re- 
sults in my being deceived.” 

The king glanced at Mena, who handed him a 
golden cup — which he emptied. He looked at the 
glittering beaker, and then, with a flash of his grave, 
bright eyes, he added : 

“ And if I am betrayed — if ten such as Ameni and 
Ani entice my people into a snare — I shall return home, 
and will tread the reptiles into dust.” 

His deep voice rang out the words, as if he were a 
herald proclaiming a victorious deed of arms. Not a 
word was spoken, not a hand moved, when he ceased 
speaking. Then he raised his cup, and said : 

“ It is well before the battle to uplift our hearts ! 
We have done great deeds ; distant nations have felt 


2i6 


UARDA. 


our -hand; we have planted our pillars of conquest by 
their rivers, and graven the record of our deeds on 
their rocks.* Your king is great above all kings, and 
it is through the might of the Gods, and your valor — 
my brave comrades. May to-morrow’s fight bring us 
new glory! May the Immortals soon bring this war to a 
close! Empty your wine cups with me — To victory 
and a speedy return home in peace ! ” 

“ Victory ! Victory ! Long life to the Pharaoh ! 
Strength and health ! ” cried the guests of the king, 
who, as he descended from his throne, cried to the 
drinkers : 

“ Now, rest till the star of Isis sets. Then follow 
me to prayer at the altar of Amon, and then — to 
battle.” 

Fresh cries of triumph sounded through the room, 
while Rameses gave his hand with a few words of en- 
couragement to each of his sons in turn. He de- 
sired the two youngest, Mernephtah and Rameri to 
follow him, and quitting the banquet with them and 
Mena, he proceeded, under the escort of his officers 
and guards, who bore staves before him with golden 
lilies and ostrich-feathers, to his sleeping-tent, which was 
surrounded by a corps d’^lite under the command of 
his sons. Before entering the tent he asked for some 
pieces of meat, and gave them with his own hand to 
his lions, who let him stroke them like tame cats. 

Then he glanced round the stable, patted the sleek 
necks and shoulders of his favorite horses, and decided 


* Herodotus speaks of the pictures graven on the rocks in the provinces 
conquered by Rameses II., in memory of his achievements- He saw two, 
one of which remains on a rock near BeyruL 


UARDA. 


217 


that ‘Nura’* and ^Victory to Thebes’ should bear him 
into the battle on the morrow. 

When he had gone into the sleeping-tent, he desired 
his attendants to leave him ; he signed Mena to divest 
him of his ornaments and his arms, and called to him 
his youngest sons, who were waiting respectfully at the 
door of the tent. 

“ Why did I desire you to accompany me ?” he 
asked them gravely. Both were silent, and he repeated 
his question. 

Because,” said Rameri at length, “you observed 
that all was not quite right between us two.” 

“ And because,” continued the king, “ I desire that 
unity should exist between my children. You will have 
enemies enough to fight with to-morrow, but friends are 
not often to be found, and are too often taken from us 
by the fortune of war. We ought to feel no anger to- 
wards the friend we may lose, but expect to meet him 
lovingly in the other world. Speak, Rameri, what has 
caused a division between you ?” 

“ I bear him no ill-will,” answered Rameri. “ You 
lately gave me the sword which Mernephtah has there 
stuck in his belt, because I did my duty well in the 
last skirmish with the enemy. You know we both sleep 
in the same tent, and yesterday, when I drew my sword 
out of its sheath to admire the fine work of the blade, 
I found that another, not so sharp, had been put in its 
place.” 

“ I had only exchanged my sword for his in fun,” 
interrupted Mernephtah. “ But he can never take a 
joke, and declared I want to wear a prize that I had 

* The horses driven by Rameses at the battle of Kadesh were in &ct 
thus named. ^ 

36 


2i8 


UARDA. 


not earned ; he would try, he said, to win another and 
then — ” 

“ I have heard enough ; you have both done wrong,” 
said the king. “ Even in fun, Mernephtah, you should 
never cheat or deceive. I did so once, and I will tell 
you what happened, as a warning. 

“ My noble mother, Tuaa, desired me, the first time 
I went into Fenchu* to bring her a pebble from the 
shore near Byblos, where the body of Osiris was washed. 
As we returned to Thebes, my mother’s request re- 
turned to my mind ; I was young and thoughtless — I 
picked up a stone by the way-side, took it with me, and 
when she asked me for the remembrance from Byblos 
I silently gave her the pebble from Thebes. She was 
delighted, she showed it to her brothers and sisters, 
and laid it by the statues of her ancestors ; but I was 
miserable with shame and penitence, and at last I se- 
cretly took away the stone, and threw it into the water. 
All the servants were called together, and strict enquiry 
was made as to the theft of the stone; then I could 
hold out no longer, and confessed everything. No one 
punished me, and yet I never suffered more severely; 
from that time I have never deviated from the exact 
truth even in jest. Take the lesson to heart, Merneph- 
tah— you, Rameri, take back your sword, and, believe 
me, life brings us so many real causes of vexation, that 
it is well to learn early to pass lightly over little things 
if you do not wish to become a surly fellow like the 
pioneer Paaker; and that seems far from likely with a 
gay, reckless temper like yours. Now shake hands with 
each other.” 

The young princes went up to each other, and 

* Phoenicia : on monuments of the i8th dynasty. 


UARDA. 


219 


Rameri fell on his brother’s neck and kissed him. The 
king stroked their heads. “ Now go in peace,” he 
said, “ and to-morrow you shall both strive to win a 
fresh mark of honor.” 

When his sons had left the tent, Rameses turned to 
his charioteer and said : 

“ I have to speak to you too before the battle. I can 
read your soul through your eyes, and it seems to me that 
things have gone wrong with you since the keeper of 
your stud arrived here. What has happened in Thebes ?” 

Mena looked frankly, but sadly at the king : 

“ My mother-in-law Katuti,” he said, “ is managing my 
estate very badly, pledging the land, and selling the cattle.” 

“ That can be remedied,” said Rameses kindly. 
“You know I promised to grant you the fulfilment of 
a wish, if Nefert trusted you as perfectly as you be- 
lieve. But it appears to me as if something more nearly 
concerning you than this were wrong, for I never knew 
you anxious about money and lands. Speak openly ! 
you know I am your father, and the heart and the eye 
of the man who guides my horses in battle, must be 
open without reserve to my gaze.” 

Mena kissed the king’s robe ; then he said : 

“ Nefert has left Katuti’s house, and as thou knowest 
has followed thy daughter, Bent-Anat, to the sacred 
mountain, and to Megiddo.” 

“ I thought the change was a good one,” replied 
Rameses. “ I leave Bent-Anat in the care of Bent- 
Anat, for she needs no other guardianship, and your 
wife can have no better protector than Bent-Anat.” 

“ Certainly not !” exclaimed Mena with sincere em- 
phasis. “ But before they started, miserable things oc- 
curred. Thou knowest that before she married me she 


220 


UARDA. 


was betrothed to her cousin, the pioneer Paaker, and 
he, during his stay in Thebes, has gone in and out of 
my house, has helped Katuti with an enormous sum to 
pay the debts of my wild brother-in-law, and — as my 
stud-keeper saw with his own eyes — has made presents 
of flowers to Nefert.” 

The king smiled, laid his hand on Mena’s shoulder, 
and said, as he looked in his face: “Your wife will 
trust you, although you take a strange woman into 
your tent, and you allow yourself to doubt her because 
her cousin gives her some flowers! Is that wise or 
just ? I believe you are jealous of the broad-shouldered 
ruffian that some spiteful wight laid in the nest of the 
noble Mohar, his father.” 

“ No, that I am not,” replied Mena, “nor does any 
doubt of Nefert disturb my soul; but it torments me, it 
nettles me, it disgusts me, that Paaker of all men, whom 
I loathe as a venomous spider, should look at her and 
make her presents under my very roof.” 

“ He who looks for faith must give faith,” said the king. 
“And must not I myself submit to accept songs of praise 
from the most contemptible wretches ? Come — smooth 
your brow; think of the approaching victory, of our re- 
turn home, and remember that you have less to forgive 
Paaker than he to forgive you. Now, pray go and see 
to the horses, and to-morrow morning let me see you on 
my chariot full of cheerful courage — as I love to see you.” 

Mena left the tent, and went to the stables ; there 
he met Rameri, who was waiting to speak to him. The 
eager boy said that he had always looked up to him 
and loved him as a brilliant example, but that lately 
he had been perplexed as to his virtuous fidelity, for 
he had been informed that Mena had taken a strange 


UARDA. 


221 


woman into his tent — he who was married to the fairest 
and sweetest woman in 'hhebes. 

“ I have known her,’^ he concluded, “ as well as if I 
were her brother ; and I know that she would die if she 
heard that you had insulted and disgraced her. Yes, 
insulted her; for such a public breach of faith is an in- 
sult to the wife of an Egyptian. Forgive my freedom 
of speech, but who knows what to-morrow may bring 
forth — and I would not for worlds go out to battle, 
thinking evil of you.” 

Mena let Rameri speak without interruption, and 
then answered • 

“ You are as frank as your father, and have learned 
from him to hear the defendant before you condemn 
him. A strange maiden, the daughter of the king of 
the Danaids,* lives in my tent, but I for months have 
slept at the door of your father’s, and I have not once 
entered my own since she has been there. Now sit 
down by me, and let me tell you hovr it all happened. 
We had pitched the camp before Kadesh, and there 
was very little for me to do, as Rameses was still laid 
up with his wound, so I often passed my time in 
hunting on the shores of the lake. One day I went 
as usual, armed only with my bow and arrow, and, 
accompanied by my grey-hounds,** heedlessly followed 

* A people of the Greeks at the time of the Trojan war. They are men- 
tioned among the nations of the Mediterranean allied against Rameses III. The 
Dardaneans, inhabitants of the Trojan provinces of Dardania, and whose name 
was used for the Trojans generally, are mentioned with the peoj^le of Pisidia 
(Pidasa), Mysia (Masa), and Ilion (lliuna), as allies of the Cheta, in the epos cf 
Pentaur. It is probable that the princes of the islands near the coast of Asia 
Minor would form alliances with those of western Asia. Brugsch, who sees in 
the nations allied with the Libyans against Rameses HI. Caucasian mercenaries, 
attempts to place the Dardaneans in Kurdistan. 

Grey-hounds, trained to hunt hares, are represented in the most ancient 
tombs, for instance, the Mastaba at Meydum, belonging to the time of Snefru 
(four centuries B. C.). Birch treats the dogs used by the Egyptians in the 
“Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1875, pages 172-195. 


222 


UARDA. 


a hare ; a troop of Danaids fell upon me, bound me 
with cords, and led me into their camp. There I was 
led before the judges as a spy, and they had actually 
condemned me, and the rope was round my neck, when 
their king came up, saw me, and subjected me to a 
fresh examination. I told him the facts at full length 
— how I had fallen into the hands of his people while 
following up my game, and not as an enemy, and he 
heard me favorably, and granted me not only life but 
freedom. He knew me for a noble, and treated me as 
one, inviting me to feed at his own table, and I swore 
in my heart, when he let me go, that I would make 
him some return for his generous conduct. 

“ About a month after, we succeeded in surprising 
the Cheta position, and the Libyan soldiers, among 
other spoil, brought away the Danaid king’s only 
daughter. I had behaved valiantly, and when we came 
to the division of the spoils Rameses allowed me to 
choose first. I laid my hand on the maid, the daughter 
of my deliverer and host, I led her to my tent, and 
left her there with her waiting-women till peace is 
concluded, and I can restore her to her father.” 

“ Forgive my doubts !” cried Rameri holding out 
his hand. “Now I understand why the king so par- 
ticularly enquired whether Nefert believed in your con- 
stancy to her.” 

“ And what was your answer ?” asked Mena. 

“ That she thinks of you day and night, and never 
for an instant doubted you. My father seemed de- 
lighted too, and he said to Chamus : ‘ He has won 
there !’ ” 

“He will grant me some great favor,” said Mena 
in explanation, “if, when she hears I have taken a 


UARDA. 


223 


Strange maiden to my tent her confidence in me is not 
shaken, Rameses considers it simply impossible, but I 
know that I shall win. Why ! she must trust me.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Before the battle,* prayers were offered and victims 
sacrificed for each division of the army. Images of the 
Gods were borne through the ranks in their festal barks, 
and miraculous relics were exhibited to the soldiers; 
heralds announced that the high-priest had found 
favorable omens in the victims offered by the king, and 
that the haruspices foretold a glorious victory. Each 
Egyptian legion turned with particular faith to the 
standard which bore the image of the sacred animal or 
symbol of the province where it had been levied, but 
each soldier was also provided with charms and amulets 
of various kinds ; one had tied to his neck or arm a 
magical text in a little bag, another the mystic preserva- 
tive eye, and most of them wore a scarabaeus in a finger- 
ring. Many believed themselves protected by having a 
few hairs or feathers of some sacred animal, and not a 
few put themselves under the protection of a living 
snake or beetle carefully concealed in a pocket of their 
apron or in their little provision-sack. 

When the king, before whom were carried the images 
of the divine Triad of Thebes, of Menth, the God of 
War and of Necheb, the Goddess of Victory, reviewed 
the ranks, he was borne in a litter on the shoulders of 
twenty-four noble youths ; at his approach the whole 
host fell on their knees, and did not rise till Rameses, 

" The battle about to be described is taken entirely from the eoos of Pentaur. 


224 


UARDA. 


descending from his position, had, in the presence of 
them all, burned incense, and made a libation to the 
Gods, and his son Chamus had delivered to him, in the 
name of the Immortals, the symbols of life and power. 
Finally, the priests sang a choral hymn to the Sun-god 
Ra, and to his son and vicar on earth, the king. 

Just as the troops were put in motion, the paling 
stars appeared in the sky, which had hitherto been 
covered with thick clouds; and this occurrence was re- 
garded as a favorable omen, the priests declaring to the 
army that, as the coming Ra had dispersed the clouds, 
so the Pharaoh would scatter his enemies. 

With no sound of trumpet or drum, so as not to arouse 
the enemy, the foot-soldiers went forward in close order, 
the chariot-warriors, each in his light two-wheeled chariot 
drawn by two horses, formed their ranks, and the king 
placed himself at their head. On each side of the gilt 
chariot in which he stood, a case was fixed, glittering with 
precious stones, in which were his bows and arrows. His 
noble horses were richly caparisoned ; purple housings, 
embroidered with turquoise beads, covered their backs 
and necks, and a crown-shaped ornament was fixed on 
their heads, from which fluttered a bunch of white 
ostrich -feathers. At the end of the ebony pole of the 
chariot, were two small padded yokes, which rested on 
the necks of the horses, who pranced in front as if play- 
ing with the light vehicle, pawed the earth with their 
small hoofs, and tossed and curved their slender necks. 

The king wore a shirt of mail,* over which lay the 
broad purple girdle of his apron, and on his head was 
the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt; behind him stood 

* The remains of a shirt of mail, dating from the time of Scheschenk T. 
(Sesonchis), who belonged to the 22d dynasty, is in the British Museum. It is 
made of leather, on which bronze scales are fastened. 


UARDA. 


225 


Mena, who, with his left hand, tightly held the reins, 
and with his right the shield which was to protect his 
sovereign in the fight. 

The king stood like a storm-proof oak, and Mena 
by his side like a sapling ash. 

The eastern horizon was rosy with the approaching 
sun-rise when they quitted the precincts of the camp ; 
at this moment the pioneer Paaker advanced to meet 
the king, threw himself on the ground before him, 
kissed the earth, and, in answer to the king’s question 
as to why he had come without his brother, told him 
that Horus was taken suddenly ill. The shades of 
dawn concealed from the king the guilty color, which 
changed to sallow paleness, on the face of the pioneer 
— unaccustomed hitherto to lying and treasom 

“ How is it with the enemy ?” asked Rameses. 

“ He is aware,” replied Paaker, “ that a fight is im- 
pending, and is collecting numberless hosts in the 
camps to the south and east of the city. If thou 
could’st succeed in falling on the rear from the north 
of Kadesh, while the foot soldiers seize the camp of 
the Asiatics from the south, the fortress will be thine 
before night. The mountain path that thou must 
follow, so as not to be discovered, is not a bad one.” 

“ Are you ill as well as your brother, man ?” asked 
the king. “ Your voice trembles.” 

I was never better,” answered the Mohar. 

Lead the way,” commanded the king, and Paakar 
obeyed. They went on in silence, followed by the 
vast troop of chariots through the dewy morning air, 
first across the plain, and then into the mountain 
range. The corps of Ra, armed with bows and 
arrows, preceeded them to clear the way ; they crossed 


226 


UARDA. 


the narrow bed of a dry torrent, and then a broad 
valley opened before them, extending to the right and 
left and enclosed by ranges of mountains. 

“The road is good,” said Rameses, turning to 
Mena. “The Mohar has learned his duties from his 
father, and his horses are capital. Now he leads the 
way, and points it out to the guards, and then in a 
moment he is close to us again.” 

“ They are the golden-bays of my breed,” said 
Mena, and the veins started angrily in his forehead. 
“ My stud-master tells me that Katuti sent them to 
him before his departure. They were intended for 
Nefert’s chariot, and he drives them to-day to defy 
and spite me.” 

“You have the wife — let the horses go,” said Ra- 
meses soothingly. 

Suddenly a blast of trumpets rang through the 
morning air; whence it came could not be seen, and 
yet it sounded close at hand. 

Rameses started up and took his battle-axe from 
his girdle, the horses pricked their ears, and Mena ex- 
claimed — 

“ Those are the trumpets of the Cheta ! I know 
the sound.” 

A closed wagon with four wheels in which the 
king’s lions were conveyed, followed the royal chariot. 

“ Let loose the lions !” cried the king, who heard 
an echoing war cry, and soon after saw the vanguard 
which had preceded him, and which was broken up 
by the chariots of the enemy, flying towards him down 
the valley again. 

The wild beasts shook their manes and sprang in 
front of their master’s chariot with loud roars. Mena 


UARDA. 


227 


lashed his whip, the horses started forward and rushed 
with frantic plunges towards the fugitives, who however 
could not be brought to a standstill, or rallied by the 
king’s voice — the enemy were close upon them, cutting 
them down. 

“ Where is Paaker ?” asked the king. But the 
pioneer had vanished as completely as if the earth had 
swallowed him and his chariot. 

The flying Egyptians and the death-dealing 
chariots of the enemy came nearer and nearer, the 
ground trembled, the tramp of hoofs and the roar of 
wheels sounded louder and louder, like the roll of a 
rapidly approaching storm. 

Then Rameses gave out a war cry, that rang back 
from the cliffs on the right hand and on the left like 
the blast of a trumpet ; his chariot-guard joined in the 
shout — for an instant the flying Egyptians paused, but 
only to rush on again with double haste, in hope of 
escape and safety : suddenly the war-cry of the enemy 
was heard behind the king, mingling with the trumpet- 
call of the Cheta, and out from a cross valley, which 
the king had passed unheeded by — and into which 
Paaker had disappeared — came an innumerable host of 
chariots which, before the king could retreat, had broken 
through the Egyptian ranks, and cut him off from the 
body of his army. Behind him he could hear the 
roar and shock of the battle, in front of him he saw 
the fugitives, the fallen, and the enemy growing each 
instant in numbers and fury. He saw the whole danger, 
and drew up his powerful form as if to prove whether 
it were an equal match for such a foe. Then, rais- 
ing his voice to such a pitch, that it sounded above 
the cries and groans of the fighting men, the words of 


228 


UARDA. 


command, the neighing of the horses, the crash of 
overthrown chariots, the dull whirr of lances and 
swords, their heavy blows on shields and helmets, and 
the whole bewildering tumult of the battle — with a loud 
shout he drew his bow, and his first arrow pierced a 
Cheta chief. 

His lions sprang forward, and carried confusion 
into the hosts that were crowding down upon him, for 
many of their horses became unmanageable at the 
roar of the furious brutes, overthrew the chariots, and 
so hemmed the advance of the troops in the rear. 
Rameses sent arrow after arrow, while Mena covered 
him with the shield from the shots of the enemy. 
His horses meanwhile had carried him forward, and 
he could fell the foremost of the Asiatics with his 
battle-axe ; close by his side fought Rameri and three 
other princes ; in front of him were the lions. 

The press was fearful, and the raging of the battle 
wild and deafening, like the roar of the surging ocean 
when it is hurled by a hurricane against a rocky coast. 

Mena seemed to be in two places at once, for, 
while he guided the horses forwards, backwards, or to 
either hand, as the exigences of the position de- 
manded, not one of the arrows shot at the king 
touched him. His eye was everywhere, the shield 
always ready, and not an eyelash of the young hero 
trembled, while Rameses, each moment more infuriated, 
incited his lions with wild war-cries, and with flash- 
ing eyes advanced farther and farther into the enemy’s 
ranks. 

Three arrows aimed, not at the king but at Mena 
himself, were sticking in the charioteer’s shield, and 


UARDA. 229 

by chance he saw written on the shaft of one of them 
the words “ Death to Mena.” 

A fourth arrow whizzed past him. His eye fol- 
lowed its flight, and as he marked the spot whence it 
had come, a fifth wounded his shoulder, and he cried 
out to the king : 

“We are betrayed ! Look over there ! Paaker is 
fighting with the Cheta.” 

Once more the Mohar had bent his bow, and came 
so near to the king’s chariot that he could be heard 
exclaiming in a hoarse voice, as he let the bowstring 
snap, “Now I will reckon with you — thief! robber! 
My bride is your wife, but with this arrow I will win 
Mena’s widow.” 

The arrow cut through the air, and fell with fear- 
ful force on the charioteer’s helmet; the shield fell 
from his grasp, and he put his hand to his head, feel- 
ing stunned ; he heard Paaker’s laugh of triumph, he 
felt another of his enemy’s arrows cut his wrist, and, 
beside himself with rage, he flung away the reins, 
brandished his battle-axe, and forgetting himself and 
his duty, sprang from the chariot and rushed upon 
Paaker. The Mohar awaited him with uplifted sword; 
his lips were white, his eyes bloodshot, his wide 
nostrils trembled like those of an over-driven horse, and 
foaming and hissing he flew at his mortal foe. The 
king saw the two engaged in a struggle, but he could 
not interfere, for the reins which Mena had dropped 
were dragging on the ground, and his ungoverned 
horses, following the lions, carried him madly onwards. 

Most of his comrades had fallen, the battle raged 
all round him, but Raineses stood as firm as a rock, 
held the shield in front of him, and swung the deadly 


UARt)A. 


236 

battle-axe ; he saw Rameri hastening towards him with 
his horses, the youth was fighting like a hero, and 
Rameses called out to encourage him : “ Well done ! 
a worthy grandson of Seti !” 

“ I will win a new sword !” cried the boy, and he 
cleft the skull of one of his antagonists. But he was 
soon surrounded by the chariots of the enemy; the 
king saw the enemy pull down the young prince’s 
horses, and all his comrades — among whom were many 
of the best warriors — turn their horses in flight. 

Then one of the lions was pierced by a lance, and 
sank with a dying roar of rage and pain that was heard 
above all the tumult. The king himself had been grazed 
by an arrow, a sword stroke had shivered his shield, 
and his last arrow had been shot away. 

Still spreading death around him, he saw death 
closing in upon him, and, without giving up the struggle, 
he lifted up his voice in fervent prayer, calling on 
Amon for support and rescue. 

While thus in the sorest need he was addressing 
himself to the Lords of Heaven, a tall Egyptian sud- 
denly appeared in the midst of the struggle and turmoil 
of the battle, seized the reins, and sprang into the 
chariot behind the king, to whom he bowed respect- 
fully. For the first time Rameses felt a thrill of fear. 
Was this a miracle ? Had Amon heard his prayer ? 

He looked half fearfully round at his new chario- 
teer, and when he fancied he recognized the features 
of the deceased Mohar, the father of the traitor Paaker, 
he believed that Amon had assumed this aspect, and 
had come himself to save him. 

“ Help is at hand !” cried his new companion. “ If 


VARDA. 23 1 

we hold our own for only a short time longer, thou art 
saved, and victory is ours.” 

Then once more Raineses raised his war-cry, felled 
a Cheta, who was standing close to him to the ground, 
with a blow on his skull, while the mysterious sup- 
porter by his side, who covered him with the shield, 
on his part also dealt many terrible strokes. 

Thus some long minutes passed in renewed strife ; 
then a trumpet sounded above the roar of the battle, and 
this time Rameses recognized the call of the Egyptians; 
from behind a low ridge on his right rushed some thou- 
sands of men of the foot-legion of Ptah who, under the 
command of Horus, fell upon the enemy’s flank. They 
saw their king, and the danger he was in. They flung 
themselves with fury on the foes that surrounded him, 
dealing death as they advanced, and putting the Cheta 
to flight, and soon Rameses saw himself safe, and 
protected by his followers. 

But his mysterious friend in need had vanished. 
He had been hit by an arrow, and had fallen to the 
earth — a quite mortal catastrophe; but Rameses still 
believed that one of the Immortals had come to his 
rescue. 

But the king granted no long respite to his horses 
and his fighting-men ; he turned to go back by the 
way by which he had come, fell upon the forces which 
divided him from the main army, took them in the 
rear while they were still occupied with his chariot- 
brigade which was already giving way, and took most 
of the Asiatics prisoners who escaped the arrows and 
swords of the Egyptians. Having rejoined the main 
body of the troops, he pushed forwards across the plain 
where the Asiatic horse and chariot-legions were en- 


232 


UARDA. 


gaged with the Egyptian swordsmen, and forced the 
enemy back upon the river Orontes and the lake of 
Kadesh. Night-fall put an end to the battle, though 
early next morning the struggle was renewed. 

Utter discouragement had fallen upon the Asiatic 
allies, who had gone into battle in full security of 
victory; for the pioneer Paaker had betrayed his king 
into their hands. 

When the Pharaoh had set out, the best chariot- 
warriors of the Cheta were drawn up in a spot con- 
cealed by the city, and sent forward against Rameses 
through the northern opening of the valley by which 
he was to pass, while other troops of approved valor, 
in all two thousand five hundred chariots, were to fall 
upon him from a cross valley where they took up their 
position during the night. 

These tactics had been successfully carried out, 
and notwithstanding the Asiatics had suffered a severe 
defeat — ^besides losing some of their noblest heroes, 
among them Titure their Chancellor, and Chiropasar,* 
the chronicler of the Cheta king, who could wield the 
sword as effectively as the pen, and who, it was in- 
tended, should celebrate the victory of the allies, and 
perpetuate its glory to succeeding generations. Rameses 
had killed one of these with his own hands, and his 
unknown companion the other, and besides these many 
other brave captains of the enemy’s troops. The king 
was greeted as a god, when he returned to the camp, 
with shouts of triumph and hymns of praise. 

Even the temple-servants, and the miserable troops 
from Upper Egypt — ground down by the long war, and 

* These names and titles occur as those of fallen Chetas on the pylon of 
the Ramesseum, 


UARDA. 


^33 


bought over by Ani — were carried away by the uni- 
versal enthusiasm, and joyfully hailed the hero and 
king who had successfully broken the stiff necks of his 
enemies. 

The next duty was to seek out the dead and 
wounded; among the latter was Mena; Rameri also 
was missing, but news was brought next day that he 
had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and he was 
immediately exchanged for the princess who had been 
sheltered in Mena’s tent. 

Paaker had disappeared; but the bays which he 
had driven into the battle were found unhurt in front 
of his ruined and blood-sprinkled chariot. 

The Egyptians were masters of Kadesh, and Che- 
tasar, the king of the Cheta, sued to be allowed to 
treat for peace, in his own name and in that of his 
allies ; but Rameses refused to grant any terms till he 
had returned to the frontier of Egypt. The conquered 
peoples had no choice, and the representative of the 
Cheta king — who himself was wounded — and twelve 
princes of the principal nations who had fought against 
Rameses, were forced to follow his victorious train. 
Every respect was shown them, and they were treated 
as the king himself, but they were none the less his 
prisoners. The king was anxious to lose no time, for 
sad suspicion filled his heart ; a shadow hitherto un- 
known to his bright and genial nature had fallen upon 
his spirit. 

This was the first occasion on which one of his 
own people had betrayed him to the enemy. Paaker’s 
deed had shaken his friendly confidence, and in his 
petition for peace the Cheta prince had intimated that 
37 


234 


UARDA. 


Rameses might find much in his household to be set 
to rights — perhaps with a strong hand. 

The king felt himself more than equal to cope with 
Ani, the priests, and all whom he had left in Egypt ; 
but it grieved him to be obliged to feel any loss of 
confidence, and it was harder to him to bear than any 
reverse of fortune. It urged him to hasten his return 
to Egypt. 

There was another thing which embittered his 
victory. Mena, whom he loved as his own son, who 
understood his lightest sign, who, as soon as he mounted 
his chariot, was there by his side like a part of him- 
self — had been dismissed from his office by the judg- 
ment of the commander-in-chief, and no longer drove 
his horses. He himself had been obliged to confirm 
this decision as just and even mild, for that man was 
worthy of death who exposed his king to danger for 
the gratification of his own revenge. 

Rameses had not seen Mena since his struggle 
with Paaker, but he listened anxiously to the news 
which was brought him of the progress of his sorely 
wounded officer. 

The cheerful, decided, and practical nature of Ra- 
meses was averse to every kind of dreaminess or self- 
absorption, and no one had ever seen him, even in 
hours of extreme weariness, give himself up to vague 
and melancholy brooding; but now he would often sit 
gazing at the ground in wrapt meditation, and start 
like an awakened sleeper when his reverie was dis- 
turbed by the requirements of the outer world around 
him. A hundred times before he had looked death 
in the face, and defied it as he would any other enemy, 
but now it seemed as though he felt the cold hand of 


tUl^DA. 


23S 


the mighty adversary on his heart. He could not 
forget the oppressive sense of helplessness which had 
seized him when he had felt himself at the mercy of 
the unrestrained horses, like a leaf driven by the wind, 
and then suddenly saved by a miracle. 

A miracle ? Was it really Amon who had appeared 
in human form at his call ? Was he indeed a son of the 
Gods, and did their blood flow in his veins ? 

The Immortals had shown him peculiar favor, but 
still he was but a man ; that he realized from the pain 
in his wound, and the treason to which he had been 
a victim. He felt as if he had been respited on the 
very scaflbld. Yes; he was a man like all other men, 
and so he would still be. He rejoiced in the obscurity 
that veiled his future, in the many weaknesses which 
he had in common with those whom he loved, and 
even in the feeling that he, under the same conditions 
of life as his contemporaries, had more responsibilities 
than they. 

Shortly after his victory, after all the important 
passes and strongholds had been conquered by his 
troops, he set out for Egypt with his train and 
the vanquished princes. He sent two of his sons to 
Bent-Anat at Megiddo, to escort her by sea to Pelu- 
sium ; he knew that the commandant of the harbor of 
that frontier fortress, at the easternmost limit of his 
kingdom, was faithful to him, and he ordered that his 
daughter should not quit the ship till he arrived, to 
secure her against any attempt on the part of the 
Regent. A large part of the material of war, and most 
of the wounded, were also sent to Egypt by sea. 


236 


UARDA. 


CHAPTER XL. 

Nearly three months had passed since the battle of 
Kadesh, and to-day the, king was expected, on his way 
home with his victorious army, at Pelusium, the strong- 
hold and key of Egyptian dominion in the east.* Splendid 
preparations had been made for his reception, and the 
man who took the lead in the festive arrangements with 
a zeal that was doubly effective from his composed de- 
meanor was no less a person than the Regent Ani. 

His chariot was to be seen everywhere; now he 
was with the workmen, who were to decorate triumphal 
arches with fresh flowers ; now with the slaves, who 
were hanging garlands on the wooden lions erected on 
the road for this great occasion ; now — and this detained 
him longest — he watched the progress of the immense 
palace which was being rapidly constructed of wood on 
the site where formerly the camp of the Hyksos had 
stood,** in which the actual ceremony of receiving 
the king was to take place, and where the Pharaoh 
and his immediate followers were to reside. It had 
been found possible, by employing several thousand 
laborers, to erect this magnificent structure, in a few 
weeks,*** and nothing was lacking to it that could be 
desired, even by a king so accustomed as Rameses to 

* See Lepsius’ “ Chronologie der Aegypter,” p. 338, where all the assaults 
the Nile valley endured from the east are enumerated. 

** Pelusium is the Abaris of Manetho, traces of the ancient walls with fort- 
like projections still remain. According to Strabo its name was derived from 
“ pelos,” ineaning the mud or marsh-city. See Ebers’ “ Aegypten und die 
Bucher Mose’s,” p. 209, and Lepsius’ Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie 
der Wissenschaften, May 17th, 1866. 

*** Herodotus speaks of this wooden palace as having been built at Daphnae ; 
Diodorus at Pelusium. I cannot agree with those who think that the conspiracy 
of the Regent occurred under Rameses III., and not under Rameses 11 . Sesostris. 
No doubt there was a petty conspiracy in the time of Rameses III. to place the 
king’s brother on the throne, but these palace-plots are spoken of elsewhere and 
were not infrequent. For instance, under Amenemha 1 . (12th dynasty), in 
Papyrus Sallier II. 


UARDA. 


237 


luxury and splendor. A high exterior flight of steps 
led from the garden — which had been created out of 
a waste — to the vestibule, out of which the banqueting 
hall opened. 

This was of unusual height, and had a vaulted 
wooden ceiling, which was painted blue and sprinkled 
with stars, to represent the night heavens, and which 
was supported on pillars carved, some in the form of 
date-palms, and some like cedars of Lebanon; the 
leaves and twigs consisted of artfully fastened and 
colored tissue; elegant festoons of bluish gauze were 
stretched from pillar to pillar across the hall, and in 
the centre of the eastern wall they were attached to a 
large shell-shaped canopy extending over the throne of 
the king, which was decorated with pieces of green 
and blue glass, of mother of pearl, of shining plates of 
mica, and other sparkling objects. 

The throne itself had the shape of a buckler, 
guarded by two lions, which rested on each side of it 
and formed the arms, and supported on the backs of 
four Asiatic captives who crouched beneath its weight. 
Thick carpets, which seemed to have transported the 
sea-shore on to the dry land — for their pale blue 
ground was strewn with a variety of shells, fishes, and 
water plants — covered the floor of the banqueting hall, 
in which three hundred seats were placed by the 
tables, for the nobles of the kingdom and the officers 
of the troops. 

Above all this splendor hung a thousand lamps, 
shaped like lilies and tulips, and in the entrance hall 
stood a huge basket of roses to be strewn before the 
king when he should arrive. 

Even the bed-rooms for the king and his suite 


238 


UARDA. 


were splendidly decorated; finely embroidered purple 
stuffs covered the walls, a light cloud of pale blue 
gauze hung across the ceiling, and giraffe skins were 
laid instead of carpets on the floors. 

The barracks intended for the soldiers and body- 
guard stood nearer to the city, as well as the stable 
buildings, which were divided from the palace by the 
garden which surrounded it. A separate pavilion, gilt 
and wreathed with flowers, was erected to receive the 
horses which had carried the king through the battle, 
and which he had dedicated to the Sun-God. 

The Regent Ani, accompanied by Katuti, was 
going through the whole of these slightly built struc- 
tures. 

“ It seems to me all quite complete,” said the 
widow. 

“ Only one thing I cannot make up my mind 
about,” replied Ani, “ whether most to admire your in- 
ventive genius or your exquisite taste.” 

“ Oh! let that pass,” said Katuti smiling. “ If any 
thing deserves your praise it is my anxiety to serve 
you. How many things had to be considered before 
this structure at last stood complete on this marshy 
spot where the air seemed alive with disgusting insects 
— and now it is finished how long will it last ?” 

Ani looked down. “ How long ?” he repeated. 

Then he continued: “There is great risk already 
of the plot miscarrying. Ameni has grown cool, and 
will stir no further in the matter ; the troops on which 
I counted are perhaps still faithful to me, but much 
too weak ; the Hebrews, who tend their flocks here, and 
whom I gained over by liberating them from forced 
labor, have never borne arms. And you know the 


UARDA. 


239 


people. They will kiss the feet of the conqueror if 
they have to wade up to them through the blood of 
their children. Besides — as it happens — the hawk 
which old Hekt keeps as representing me is to-day 
pining and sick — ” 

“ It will be all the prouder and brighter to-morrow 
if you are a man !” exclaimed Katuti, and her eyes 
sparkled with scorn. “ You cannot now retreat. Here 
in Pelusium you welcome Rameses as if he were a 
God, and he accepts the honor. I know the king, he 
is too proud to be distrustful, and so conceited that 
he can never believe himself deceived in any man, 
either friend or foe. The man whom he appointed to 
be his Regent, whom he designated as the worthiest 
in the land, he will most unwillingly condemn. To- 
day you still have the ear of the king ; to-morrow he 
will listen to your enemies, and too much has occurred 
in Thebes to be blotted out. You are in the position 
of a lion who has his keeper on one side, and the 
bars of his cage on the other. If you let the moment 
pass without striking you will remain in the cage ; but 
if you act and show yourself a lion your keepers are 
done for!” 

‘‘You urge me on and on,” said Ani. “But sup^ 
posing your plan were to fail, as Paaker’s well con- 
sidered plot failed ?” 

“ Then you are no worse off than you are now,” 
answered Katuti. “ The Gods rule the elements, not 
men. Is it likely that you should finish so beautiful a 
structure with such care only to destroy it ? And we 
have no accomplices, and need none.” 

“ But who shall set the brand to the room which 


240 


UARDA. 


Nemu and the slave have filled with straw and pitch ?” 
asked Ani. 

“ I,” said Katuti decidedly. “ And one who has 
nothing to look for from Rameses.” 

“ Who is that ?” 

Paaker.” 

“ Is the Mohar here ?” asked the Regent surprised. 

“You yourself have seen him.” 

“You are mistaken,” said Ani. “ I should — ” 

“ Do you recollect the one-eyed, grey-haired, black- 
man, who yesterday brought me a letter? That was 
my sister’s son.” 

The Regent struck his forehead — “ Poor wretch ” 
he muttered. 

“ He is frightfully altered,” said Katuti. “ He need 
not have blackened his face, for his own mother would 
not know him again. He lost an eye in his fight with 
Mena, who also wounded him in the lungs with a 
thrust of his sword, so that he breathes and speaks 
with difficulty, his broad shoulders have lost their flesh, 
and the fine legs he swaggered about on have shrunk 
as thin as a negro’s. I let him pass as my servant 
without any hesitation or misgiving. He does not yet 
know of my purpose, but I am sure that he would help 
us if a thousand deaths threatened him. For God’s 
sake put aside all doubts and fears! We will shake 
the tree for you, if you will only hold out your hand 
to-morrow to pick up the fruit. Only one thing I 
must beg. Command the head butler not to stint the 
wine, so that the guards may give us no trouble. I 
know that you gave the order that only three of the 
five ships which brought the contents of your wine- 
lofts should be unloaded. I should have thought that 


UARDA. 


241 


the future king of Egypt might have been less anxious 
to save !” 

Katuti’s lips curled with contempt as she spoke the 
last words. Ani observed this and said : 

“You think I am timid! Well, I confess I would 
far rather that much which I have done at your in- 
stigation could be undone. I would willingly re- 
nounce this new plot, though we so carefully planned 
it when we built and decorated this palace. I will 
sacrifice the wine; there are jars of wine there that 
were old in my father’s time — but it must be so I You 
are right 1 Many things have occurred which the king 
will not forgive! You are right, you are right — do 
what seems good to you. I will retire after the feast to 
the Ethiopian camp.” 

“ They will hail you as king as soon as the usurpers 
have fallen in the flames,” cried Katuti. “ If only a 
few set the example, the others will take up the cry, 
and even though you have offended Ameni he will 
attach himself to you rather than to Rameses. Here he 
comes, and I already see the standards in the distance.” 

“ They are coming !” said the Regent. “ One thing 
more ! Pray see yourself that the princess Bent-Anat 
goes to the rooms intended for her ; she must not be 
injured.” 

“ Still Bent-Anat ?” said Katuti with a smile full of 
meaning but without bitterness. “ Be easy, her rooms 
are on the ground floor, and she shall be warned in 
time.” 

Ani turned to leave her; he glanced once more at 
the great hall, and said with a sigh. “ My heart is 
heavy— I wish this day and this night were over!” 

“ You are like this grand hall,” said Katuti smiling, 


UARDA. 


242 

‘‘ which is now empty, almost dismal ; but this evening, 
when it is crowded with guests, it will look very dif- 
ferent. You were born to be a king, and yet are not 
a king ; you will not be quite yourself till the crown 
and sceptre are your own.” 

Ani smiled too, thanked her, and left her; but 
Katuti said to herself : 

“ Bent-Anat may bum with the rest : I have no in- 
tention of sharing my power with her !” 

Crowds of men and women from all parts had 
thronged to Pelusium, to welcome the conqueror and 
his victorious army on the frontier.* Every great 
temple-college had sent a deputation to meet Rameses, 
that from the Necropolis consisting of five members, 
with Ameni and old Gagabu at their head. The 
white-robed ministers of the Gods marched in solemn 
procession towards the bridge which lay across the 
eastern — Pelusiac — arm of the Nile, and led to Egypt 
proper — the land fertilized by the waters of the sacred 
stream.** 

The deputation from the temple of Memphis led 
the procession ; this temple had been founded by Mena, 
the first king who wore the united crowns of Upper 
and Lower Egypt, and Chamus, the king’s son, was the 
high-priest. The deputation from the not less im- 
portant temple of Heliopolis came next, and was fol- 
lowed by the representatives of the Necropolis of 
Thebes. 

* A fine picture of such a festival, in honor of the father of this king 
when he returned from Syria, still exists on the north wall of the Temple of 
Kamak. 

** According to Herodotus, the oracle of Amon declared to the inhabitants 
of Marca and Apis that all the land watered by the inundations of the Nile 
was Egypt. 


UARDA. 


243 


A few only of the members of these deputations 
wore the modest white robe of the simple priest ; most 
of them were invested with the panther-skin which 
w'as worn by the prophets. Each bore a staff dec- 
orated with roses, lilies, and green branches, and many 
carried censers in the form of a golden arm with in- 
cense in the hollow of the hand, to be burnt before 
the king. Among the deputies from the priesthood 
at Thebes were several women of high rank, who 
served in the worship of this God, and among them 
was Katuti, who by the particular desire of the Regent 
had lately been admitted to this noble sisterhood.* 

Ameni walked thoughtfully by the side of the 
prophet Gagabu. 

“ How differently everything has happened from 
what we hoped and intended !” said Gagabu in a low 
voice. “We are like ambassadors with sealed creden- 
tials — who can tell their contepts ?” 

“ I welcome Rameses heartily and joyfully,” said 
Ameni. “ After that which happened to him at Kadesh 
he will come home a very different man to what he 
was when he set out. He knows now what he owes 
to Amon. His favorite son was already at the head 
of the ministers of the temple at Memphis, and he 
has vowed to build magnificent temples and to bring 
splendid offerings to the Immortals. And Rameses 
keeps his word better than that smiling simpleton in 
the chariot yonder.” 

“ Still I am sorry for Ani,” said Gagabu. 

“ The Pharaoh will not punish him — certainly not,” 

*■ The so-called Pallakidai, whom we frequently hear of as devoted to the 
service of Amon but sometimes also to that of the Goddesses Isis and Bast. 
Although they are called virgins on the tablet of Tanis, they are frequently 
married, and there is no reason why Katuti should not have belonged to them, 


244 


UARDA. 


replied the high-priest. ‘‘ And he will have nothing to 
fear from Ani ; he is a feeble reed, the powerless sport 
of every wind.” 

“ And yet you hoped for great things from him !” 

“ Not from him, but through him — with us for 
his guides,” replied Ameni in a low voice but with 
emphasis. “ It is his own fault that I have abandoned 
his cause. Our first wish — to spare the poet Pentaur — 
he would not respect, and he did not hesitate to break 
his oath, to betray us, and to sacrifice one of the noblest 
of God’s creatures, as the poet was, to gratify a petty 
grudge. It is harder to fight against cunning weakness 
than against honest enmity. Shall we reward the man 
who has deprived the world of Pentaur by giving him 
a crown ? It is hard to quit the trodden way, and 
seek a better — to give up a half-executed plan and 
take a more promising one; it is hard, I say, for the 
individual man, and makes him seem fickle in the eyes 
of others; but we cannot see to the right hand and 
the left, and if we pursue a great end we cannot re- 
main within the narrow limits which are set by law 
and custom to the actions of private individuals. We 
draw back just as we seem to have reached the goal, 
we let him fall whom we had raised, and lift him, 
whom we had stricken to the earth, to the pinnacle 
of glory, in short we profess — and for thousands of 
years have professed — the doctrine that every path is 
a right one that leads to the great end of securing 
to the priesthood the supreme power in the land. 
Rameses, saved by a miracle, vowing temples to the 
Gods, will for the future exhaust his restless spirit not 
in battle as a warrior, but in building as an architect. 
He will make use of us, and we can always lead the 


UARDA. 245 

man who needs us. So I now hail the son of Seti 
with sincere joy.” 

Ameni was still speaking when the flags were 
hoisted on the standards by the triumphal arches, 
clouds of dust rolled up on the farther shore of the 
Nile, and the blare of trumpets was heard. 

First came the horses which had carried Rameses 
through the fight, with the king himself, who drove 
them. His eyes sparkled with joyful triumph as the 
people on the farther side of the bridge received him 
with shouts of joy, and the vast multitude hailed him 
with wild enthusiasm and tears of emotion, strewing in 
his path the spoils of their gardens — flowers, garlands, 
and palm-branches. 

Ani marched at the head of the procession that 
w'ent forth to meet him ; he humbly threw himself in 
the dust before the horses, kissed the ground, and then 
presented to the king the sceptre that had been en- 
trusted to him, lying on a silk cushion. The king re- 
ceived it graciously, and when Ani took his robe to 
kiss it, the king bent down towards him, and touching 
the Regent’s forehead with his lips, desired him to take 
the place by his side in the chariot, and fill the office 
of charioteer. 

The king’s eyes were moist with grateful emotion. 
He had not been deceived, and he could re-enter the 
country for whose greatness and welfare alone he lived, 
as a father, loving and beloved, and not as a master to 
judge and punish. He was deeply moved as he ac- 
cepted the greetings of the priests, and with them 
offered up a public prayer. Then he was conducted 
to the splendid structure which had been prepared for 
him gaily mounted the outside steps, and from the top- 


246 


UARDA. 


most stair bowed to liis innumerable crowd of subjects ; 
and while he awaited the procession from the harbor 
which escorted Bent-Anat in her litter, he inspected the 
thousand decorated bulls and antelopes* which were 
to be slaughtered as a thank-offering to the Gods, the 
tame lions and leopards, the rare trees in whose branches 
perched gaily-colored birds, the giraffes, and chariots to 
which ostriches were harnessed, which all marched past 
him in a long array. 

Rameses embraced his daughter before all the 
people; he felt as if he must admit his subjects to the 
fullest sympathy in the happiness and deep thankful- 
ness which filled his soul. His favorite child had 
never seemed to him so beautiful as this day, and he 
realized with deep emotion her strong resemblance to 
his lost wife.** 

Nefert had accompanied her royal friend as fan- 
bearer, and she knelt before the king while he gave 
himself up to the delight of meeting his daughter. 
Then he observed her, and kindly desired her to rise. 
“ How much,” he said, “ I am feeling to-day for the 
first time ! I have already learned that what I formerly 
thought of as the highest happiness is capable of a yet 
higher pitch, and I now perceive that the most beautiful 
is capable of growing to greater beauty ! A sun has 
grown from Mena’s star.” 

Rameses, as he spoke, remembered his charioteer; 
for a moment his brow was clouded, and he cast down 
his eyes, and bent his head in thought. 

Bent-Anat well knew this gesture of her father’s ; it 

* The splendor of the festivities I make Ani prepare seems pitiful compared 
with those Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to the report of an eye witness, 
Callixenus, displayed to the Alexandrians on a festal occasion. 

** Hei name was Isis NcferU 


UARDA. 


247 


was the omen of some kindly, often sportive suggestion, 
such as he loved to surprise his friends with. 

He reflected longer than usual; at last he looked 
up,^ and his full eyes rested lovingly on his daughter as 
he asked her : 

“ What did your friend say when she heard that her 
husband had taken a pretty stranger into his tent, and 
harbored her there for months ? Tell me the whole 
truth of it, Bent-Anat.” 

“ I am indebted to this deed of Mena’s, which must 
certainly be quite excusable if you can smile when you 
speak of it,” said the princess, “ for it was the cause of 
his wife’s coming to me. Her mother blamed her hus- 
band with bitter severity, but she would not cease to 
believe in him, and left her house because it was im- 
possible for her to endure to hear him blamed.” 

“ Is this the fact ?” asked Rameses. 

Nefert bowed her pretty head, and two tears ran 
down her blushing cheeks. 

“ How good a man must be,” cried the king, “ on 
whom the Gods bestow such happiness ! My lord Cham- 
berlain, inform Mena that I require his services at dinner 
to-day — as before the battle at Kadesh. He flung away 
the reins in the fight when he saw his enemy, and we shall 
see if he can keep from flinging down the beaker when, 
with his own eyes, he sees his beloved wife sitting at the 
table. — You ladies will join me at the banquet.” 

Nefert sank on her knees before the king; but he 
turned from her to speak to the nobles and officers 
who had come to meet him, and then proceeded to the 
temple to assist at the slaughter of the victims, and 
to solemnly renew his vow in the presence of the 
priests and the people, to erect a magnificent temple in 


248 


UARDA. 


Thebes as a thank-offering for his preservation from 
death. He was received with rapturous enthusiasm ; his 
road led to the harbor, past the tents in which lay 
the wounded, who had been brought home to Egypt 
by ship, and he greeted them graciously from his 
chariot. 

Ani again acted as his charioteer ; they drove slow- 
ly through the long ranks of invalids and convalescents, 
but suddenly Ani gave the reins an involuntary pull, 
the horses reared, and it was with difficulty that he 
soothed them to a steady pace again. 

Rameses looked round in anxious surprise, for at 
the moment when the horses had started, he too had 
felt an agitating thrill — ^he thought he had caught sight 
of his preserver at Kadesh. 

Had the sight of a God struck terror into the horses? 
Was he the victim of a delusion? or was his preserver 
a man of flesh and blood, who had come home from 
the battle-field among the wounded! 

The man who stood by his side, and held the reins, 
could have informed him, for Ani had recognized Pen- 
taur, and in his horror had given the reins a perilous 
jerk. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

The king did not return to the great pavilion till 
after sun-down ; the banqueting hall, illuminated with 
a thousand lamps, was now filled with the gay crowd 
of guests who awaited the arrival of the king. All 
bowed before him, as he entered, more or less low, 


UARDA. 


249 


each according to his rank ; he immediately seMed 
himself on his throne, surrounded by his children in a 
wide semicircle, and his officers and retainers all 
passed before him ; for each he had a kindly w'ord or 
glance, winning respect from all, and filling every one 
with joy and hope. 

“ The only really divine attribute of my royal con- 
dition,” said he to himself, “ is that it is so easy to a 
king to make men happy. My predecessors chose the 
poisonous Uraeus as the emblem of their authority, for 
we can cause death as quickly and certainly as the 
venomous snake; but the power of giving happiness 
dwells on our own lips, and in our own eyes, and we 
need some instrument when we decree death.” 

“Take the Uraeus crown from my head,” he con- 
tinued aloud, as he seated himself at the feast. “ To- 
day I will wear a wreath of flowers.” 

During the ceremony of bowing to the king, two 
men had quitted the hall — the Regent Ani, and the 
high-priest Ameni. 

Ani ordered a small party of the watch to go and 
seek out the priest Pentaur in the tents of the wounded 
by the harbor, to bring the poet quietly to his tent, 
and to guard him there till his return. He still had 
in his possession the maddening potion, which he was 
to have given to the captain of the transport-boat, and 
it was open to him still to receive Pentaur either as a 
guest or as a prisoner. Pentaur might injure him, 
whether Katuti’s project failed or succeeded. 

Ameni left the pavilion to go to see old Gagabu, 
who had stood so long in the heat of the sun during 
the ceremony of receiving the conqueror, that he had 
been at last carried fainting to the tent which he 
38 


250 


UARDA. 


shared with the high-priest, and which was not far 
from that of the Regent. He found the old man 
much revived, and was preparing to mount his chariot 
to go to the banquet, when the Regent’s myrmidons 
led Pentaur past in front of him. Ameni looked doubt- 
fully at the tall and noble figure of the prisoner, but 
Pentaur recognized him, called him by his name, and 
in a moment they stood together, hand clasped in 
hand. The guards showed some uneasiness, but 
Ameni explained who he was. 

The high-priest was sincerely rejoiced at the pre- 
servation and restoration of his favorite disciple, whom 
for many months he had mourned as dead ; he looked 
at his manly figure with fatherly tenderness, and de- 
sired the guards, who bowed to his superior dignity, 
to conduct his friend, on his responsibility, to his tent 
instead of to Ani’s. 

There Pentaur found his old friend Gagabu, who 
wept with delight at his safety. All that his master 
had accused him of seemed to be forgotten. Ameni 
had him clothed in a fresh white robe, he was never 
tired of looking at him, and over and over again 
clapped his hand upon his shoulder, as if he were his 
own son that had been lost and found again. 

Pentaur was at once required to relate all that had 
happened to him, and the poet told the story of his 
captivity and liberation at Mount Sinai, his meeting 
with Bent-Anat, and how he had fought in the battle 
of Kadesh, had been wounded by an arrow, and found 
and rescued by the faithful Kaschta. He concealed 
only his passion for Bent-Anat, and the fact that he 
had preserved the king’s life. 

“ About an hour ago,” he added, “ I was sitting 


uarda. 


251 

alone in my tent, watching the lights in the palace 
yonder, when the watch who are outside brought me 
an order from the Regent to accompany them to his 
tent. What can he want with me ? I always thought 
he owed me a grudge.” 

Gagabu and Ameni glanced meaningly at each 
other, and the high-priest then hastened away, as 
already he had remained too long away from the ban- 
quet. Before he got into his chariot he commanded 
the guard to return to their posts, and took it upon 
himself to inform the Regent that his guest would 
remain in his tent till the festival was over; the soldiers 
unhesitatingly obeyed him. 

Ameni arrived at the palace before them, and 
entered the banqueting-hall just as Ani was assigning 
a place to each of his guests. The high-priest went 
straight up to him, and said, as he bowed before 
him : 

“ Pardon my long delay, but I was detained by a 
great surprise. The poet Pentaur is living — as you 
know. I have invited him to remain in my tent as 
my guest, and to tend the prophet Gagabu.” 

The Regent turned pale, he remained speechless 
and looked at Ameni with a cold ghastly smile ; but 
he soon recovered himself 

“ You see,” he said, “ how you have injured me by 
your unworthy suspicions ; I meant to have restored 
your favorite to you myself to-morrow.” 

“ Forgive me, then, for having anticipated your 
plan,” said Ameni, taking his seat near the king. 

Hundreds of slaves hurried to and fro loaded with 
costly dishes. Large vessels of richly wrought gold and 
silver were brought into the hall on wheels, and set on 


252 


UARDA. 


the side-boards. Children were perched in the shells 
and lotus-flow'ers that hung from the painted rafters ; 
and from between the pillars, that were hung with 
cloudy transparent tissues, they threw roses and violets 
down on the company. The sounds of harps and 
songs issued from concealed rooms, and from an altar, 
six ells high, in the middle of the hall, clouds of in- 
cense were wafted into space. 

The king — one of whose titles was “ Son of the 
Sun,” — was as radiant as the sun himself. His chil- 
dren were once more around him, Mena was his cup- 
bearer as in former times, and all that was best and 
noblest in the land was gathered round him to rejoice 
with him in his triumph and his return. Opposite to 
him sat the ladies, and exactly in front of him, a de- 
light to his eyes, Bent-Anat and Nefert. His injunction 
to Mena to hold the wine cup steadily seemed by 410 
means superfluous, for his looks constantly wandered 
from the king’s goblet to his fair wife, from whose lips 
he as yet had heard no word of welcome, whose hand 
he had not yet been so happy as to touch. 

All the guests were in the most joyful excitement. 
Rameses related the tale of his fight at Kadesh, and 
the high-priest of Heliopolis observed : “ In later times 
the poets will sing of thy deeds.” 

“ Their songs will not be of my achievements,” ex- 
claimed the king, “but of the grace of the Divinity, 
who so miraculously rescued your sovereign, and gave 
the victory to the Egyptians over an innumerable 
enemy.” 

“ Did you see the God with your own eyes ? and in 
what form did he appear to you ?” asked Bent-Anat. 

“It is most extraordinary,” said the king, “but he 


UARDA. 


253 


exactly resembled the dead father of the traitor Paaker, 
My preserver was of tall stature, and had a beautiful 
countenance; his voice was deep and thrilling, and he 
swung his battle-axe as if it were a mere plaything.” 

Ameni had listened eagerly to the king’s words, 
now' he bowed low before him and said humbly : 
“ If I were younger I myself would endeavor, as was 
the custom with our fathers, to celebrate this glorious 
deed of a God and of his sublime son in a song 
w'orthy of this festival ; but melting tones are no longer 
mine, they vanish with years, and the ear of the listener 
lends itself only to the young. Nothing is wanting to 
thy feast, most lordly Ani, but a poet, who might 
sing the glorious deeds of our monarch to the sound 
of his lute, and yet — we have at hand the gifted Pen- 
taur, the noblest disciple of the House of Seti.” 

Bent-Anat turned perfectly white, and the priests 
who were present expressed the utmost joy and 
astonishment, for they had long thought the young 
poet, who was highly esteemed throughout Egypt, to 
be dead. 

The king had often heard of the fame of Pentaur 
from his sons and especially from Rameri, and he 
willingly consented that Ameni should send for the 
poet, who had himself borne arms at Kadesh, in order 
that he should sing a song of triumph. The Regent 
gazed blankly and uneasily into his wine cup, and the 
high-priest rose to fetch Pentaur himself into the pre- 
sence of the king. 

During the high-priest’s absence, more and more 
dishes were served to the company ; behind each guest 
stood a silver bowl with rose water, in which from 
time to time he could dip his fingers to cool and clean 


254 


UARDA. 


them; the slaves in waiting were constantly at hand 
with embroidered napkins to wipe them,* and others 
frequently changed the faded wreaths, round the heads 
and shoulders of the feasters, for fresh ones. 

“ How pale you are, my child !” said Rameses turn- 
ing to Bent-Anat. “ If you are tired, your uncle will no 
doubt allow you to leave the hall ; though I think you 
should stay to h6ar the performance of this much-lauded 
poet. After having been so highly praised he will find 
it difficult to satisfy his hearers. But indeed I am un- 
easy about you, my child — would you rather go ?” 

The Regent had risen and said earnestly : 

“ Your presence has done me honor, but if you are 
fatigued I beg you to allow me to conduct you and your 
ladies to the apartments intended for you.” 

“ I will stay,” said Bent-Anat in a low but decided 
tone, and she kept her eyes on the floor, while her heart 
beat violently, for the murmur of voices told her that 
Pentaur was entering the hall. He wore the long white 
robe of a priest of the temple of Seti, and on his forehead 
the ostrich-feather which marked him as one of the in- 
itiated. He did not raise his eyes till he stood close be- 
fore the king; then lie prostrated himself before him, and 
awaited a sign from the Pharaoh before he rose again. 

But Rameses hesitated a long time, for the youthful 
figure before him, and the glance that met his own, 
moved him strangely. Was not this the divinity of the 
fight? Was not this his preserver? Was he again 
deluded by a resemblance, or was he in a dream ? 

The guests gazed in silence at the spellbound 
king, and at the poet; at last Rameses bowed his head, 

' Napkins (eKfiayela) are mentioned in several of the Greek papyri in the 
Louvre ; and in the pictures of banquets in ancient times servants carry them 
over their arms. 


UAKDA, 253 

Pentaur rose to his feet, and the bright color flew to 
his face as close to him he perceived Bent-Anat. 

You fought at Kadesh ?” asked the king. 

“As thou sayest,” replied Pentaur. 

“You are well spoken of as a poet,” said Rameses 
“and we desire to hear the wonderful tale of my preser- 
vation celebrated in song. If you will attempt it, let 
a lute be brought and sing.” 

The poet bowed. “ My gifts are modest,” he said, 
“but I will endeavor to sing of the glorious deed, in the 
presence of the hero who achieved it, with the aid of 
the Gods.” 

Rameses gave a signal, and Ameni caused a l^rge 
golden harp to be brought in for his disciple. Pentaur 
lightly touched the strings, leaned his head against the 
top of the tall bow of the harp, for some time lest in 
meditation; then he drew himself up boldly, and struck 
the chords, bringing out a strong and warlike music in 
broad heroic rhythm. 

Then he began the narrative: how Rameses had 
pitched his camp before Kadesh, how he ordered his 
troops, and how he had taken the field against the 
Cheta, and their Asiatic allies. Louder and stronger 
rose his tones when he reached the turning-point of the 
battle, and began to celebrate the rescue of the king; 
and the Pharaoh listened with eager attention as Pen- 
taur sang 

“Then the king stood forth, and, radiant with courage. 

He looked like the Sun-god anned and eager for battle. 

The noble steeds that bore him into the struggle — 

* Victory to Thebes’ was the name of one, and the other 
Was called ‘contented Nura’ — were foaled in the stables 
Of him we call ‘ the elect,’ ‘the beloved of Amon,’ 

‘Lord of truth,’ the chosen vicar of Ra. 

* A literal translation of the ancient Egyptian poem called “ I'he Epos oi 
Pentaiu-.” 


256 


UARDA. 


Up sprang the king and threw himself on the foe, 

The swaying ranks of the contemptible Cheta. 

He stood alone — alone, and no man with him. 

As thus the king stood forth all eyes were upon him. 

And soon he was enmeshed by men and horses, 

And by the enemy’s chariots, two thousand five hundred. 
The foe behind hemmed him in and enclosed him. 

Dense the array of the contemptible Cheta, 

Dense the swarm of warriors out of Arad, 

Dense the Mysian host, the Pisidian legions. 

Every chariot carried three bold warriors. 

All his foes, and all allied like brothers. 

“ Not a prince is with me, not a captain. 

Not an archer, none to guide my horses ! 

Fled the riders ! fled my troops and horse — 

By my side not one is now left standing.” 

Thus the king, and raised his voice in prayer. 

” Great father Amon, I have known Thee well. 

And can the father thus forget his son ? 

Have I in any deed forgotten Thee ? 

Have I done aught without Thy high behest 
Or moved or staid against Thy sovereign will ? 

Great am I — mighty are Egyptian kings — 

But in the sight of Thy commanding might. 

Small as the chieftain of a wandering tribe. 

Immortal Lord, crush Thou this unclean people; 

Break 'I'hou their necks, annihilate the heathen. 

And I — have I not brought Thee many victims. 

And filled Thy temple with the captive folk ? 

And for Thy pre.sence built a dwelling place 
That shall endure for countless years to come ? 

Thy garners overflow with gifts from me. 

I offered I'hee the world to swell Thy glory. 

And thirty thousand mighty steers have shed 
Their smoking blood on fragrant cedar piles. 

Tall gateways, flag-decked masts, I raised to Thee, 

And obelisks from Abu I have brought. 

And built Thee temples of eternal stone. 

For Thee my ships have brought across the sea 
The tribute of the nations. This I did — 

When were such things done in the former time ? 

For dark the fate of him who would rebel 
Against Thee: though Thy sway is just and mild. 

My father, Amon — as an earthly son 
His earthly father — so I call on Thee. 

Look down from heaven on me, beset by foes. 

By heathen foes — the folk that know Thee not. 

The nations have combined against Thy son ; 

I stand alone — alone, and no man with me. 

My foot and horse are fled, I called aloud 
And no one heard — in vain I called to them. 

And yet I say : the sheltering care of Amon 
Is better succor than a million men. 

Or than ten thousand knights, or than a thousand 
Brothers and sons though gathered into one. 


UARDA. 


257 


And yet I say : the bulwarks raised by men 
However strong, compared to Thy great works 
Are but vain shadows, and no human aid 
Avails against the foe— but Thy strong hand. 

The counsel of Thy lips shall guide my way ; 

1 have obeyed whenever Thou nast ruled ; 

I call on Thee — and, with my fame. Thy glory 
Shall fill the world, from farthest east to west.” 

Yea, his cry rang forth even far as Hermonthis, 

And Amon himself apjieared at his call ; and gave him 
His hand and shouted in triumph, saying to the Pharaoh ; 
“ Help is at hand, O Rameses. I will uphold thee — 

I thy father am he who now is thy succor. 

Bearing thee in my hands. For stronger and readier 
I than a hundred thousand mortal retainers ; 

I ana the Lord of victory loving valor ? 

I rejoice in the brave and give them good counsel. 

And he whom I counsel certainly shall not miscarry.” 

Then like Menth, with his right he scattered the arrows, 
And with his left he swung his deadly weapon. 

Felling the foe — as his foes are felled by Baal. 

The chariots were broken and the drivers scattered. 

Then was the foe overthrown before his horses. 

None found a hand to fight : they could not shoot 
Nor dared they hurl the spear but fled at his coming — 
Headlong into the river. — * 


A silence as of the grave reigned in the vast hall, 
Rameses fixed his eyes on the poet, as though he 
would engrave his features on his very soul, and com- 
pare them with those of another which had dwelt 
there unforgotten since the day of Kadesh. Beyond 
a doubt his preserver stood before him. 

Seized by a sudden impulse, he interrupted the 
poet in the midst of his stirring song, and cried out 
to the assembled guests : 

“ Pay honor to this man ! for the Divinity chose 
to appear under his form to save your king when he 
‘ alone, and no man with him,’ struggled with a thou- 
sand.” 


* I have availed myself of the help of Prof. 
” Records of the past,” edited by Dr. S. Birch. 


Lushington’s translation in 
'franslator. 


UARDA. 


*S8 


Hail to Pentaur !” rang through the hall from the 
vast assembly, and Nefert rose and gave the poet the 
bunch of flowers she had been wearing on her bosom. 

The king nodded approval, and looked enquiringly at 
his daughter; Bent-Anat’s eyes met his with a glance of 
intelligence, and with all the simplicity of an impulsive 
child, she took from her head the wreath that had deco- 
rated her beautiful hair, went up to Pentaur, and 
crowned him with it, as it was customary for a bride 
to crown her lover before the wedding. 

Rameses observed his daughter’s action with some 
surprise, and the guests responded to it with loud 
cheering. 

The king looked gravely at Bent-Anat and the 
young priest ; the eyes of all the company were eagerly 
fixed on the princess and the poet. The king seemed 
to have forgotten the presence of strangers, and to be 
wholly absorbed in thought, but by degrees a change 
came over his face, it cleared, as a landscape is cleared 
from the morning mists under the influence of the 
spring sunshine. When he looked up again his glance 
was bright and satisfied, and Bent-Anat knew what it 
promised when it lingered lovingly first on her, and 
then on her friend, whose head was still graced by the 
wreath that had crowned hers. 

At last Rameses turned from the lovers, and said 
to the guests : 

“It is past midnight, and I will now leave you. 
To-morrow evening I bid you all — and you especially, 
Pentaur — to be my guests in this banqueting hall. 
Once more fill your cups, and let us empty them — 
to a long time of peace after the victory which, by the 
help of the Gods, we h^ve won. And at the same 


UARDA. 


259 


time let us express our thanks to my friend Ani, who 
has entertained us so magnificently, and who has so 
faithfully and zealously administered the affairs of the 
kingdom during my absence.” 

The company pledged the king, who warmly shook 
hands with the Regent, and then, escorted by his wand- 
bearers and lords in waiting, quitted the hall, after he 
had signed to Mena, Ameni, and the ladies to follow 
him. 

Nefert greeted her husband, but she immediately 
parted from the royal party, as she had yielded to the 
urgent entreaty of Katuti that she should for this night 
go to her mother, to whom she had so much to tell, 
instead of remaining with the princess. Her mother’s 
chariot soon took her to her tent. 

Rameses dismissed his attendants in the ante-room 
of his apartments; when they were alone he turned to 
Bent-Anat and said affectionately : 

“ What was in your mind when you laid your 
wreath on the poet’s brow ?” 

“ What is in every maiden’s mind when she does 
the like,” replied Bent-Anat with trustful frankness. 

“ And your father ?” asked the king. 

“ My father knows that I will obey him even if he 
demands of me the hardest thing — the sacrifice of all 
my happiness; but I believe that he — that you love me 
fondly, and I do not forget the hour in which you said 
to me that now my mother was dead you would be 
father and mother both to me, and you would try to 
understand me as she certainly would have understood 
me. But what need between us of so many words. 
I love Pentaur — with a love that is not of yesterday — 
with the first perfect love of my heart and he ha5 


26 o 


UARDA. 


proved himself worthy of that high honor. But were he 
ever so humble, the hand of your daughter has the 
power to raise him above every prince in the land.” 

“ It has such power, and you shall exercise it,” 
cried the king. “You have been true and faithful to 
yourself, while your father and protector left you to 
yourself. In you I love the image of your mother, and 
I learned from her that a true woman’s heart can find 
the right path better than a man’s wisdom. Now go 
to rest, and to-morrow morning put on a fresh wreath, 
for you will have need of it, my noble daughter.” 


CHAPTER XLII. 

The cloudless vault of heaven spread over the plain 
of Pelusium, the stars were bright, the moon threw her 
calm light over the thousands of tents which shone as 
white as little hillocks of snow. All was silent, the 
soldiers and the Egyptians, who had assembled to wel- 
come the king, were now all gone to rest. 

There had been great rejoicing and jollity in the 
camp ; three enormous vats, garlanded with flowers and 
overflowing with wine, which spilt with every move- 
ment of the trucks on whicji they were drawn by 
thirty oxen, were sent up and down the little streets of 
tents, and as the evening closed in tavern-booths were 
erected in many spots in the camp, at which the 
Regent’s servants supplied the soldiers with red and 
white wine. The tents of the populace were only 
divided from the pavilion of the Pharaoh by the liastily- 
constructed garden in the midst of which it stood, and 
the hedge which enclosed it, 


UARDA. 


261 


The tent of the Regent himself was distinguished 
from all the others by its size and magnificence; to 
the right of it was the encampment of the different 
priestly deputations, to the left that of his suite ; among 
the latter were the tents of his friend Katuti, a large 
one for her own use, and some smaller ones for her 
servants. Behind Ani’s pavilion stood a tent, enclosed 
in a wall or screen of canvas, within which old Hekt was 
lodged ; Ani had secretly conveyed her hither on board 
his own boat. Only Katuti and his confidential ser- 
vants knew who it was that lay concealed in the mys- 
teriously shrouded abode. 

While the banquet was proceeding in the great 
pavilion, the witch was sitting in a heap on the sandy 
earth of her conical canvas dwelling; she breathed 
with difficulty, for a weakness of the heart, against 
which she had long struggled, now oppressed her more 
frequently and severely; a little lamp of clay burned 
before her, and on her lap crouched a sick and ruffled 
hawk; the creature shivered from time to time, closing 
the filmy lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a 
dull fire when Hekt took him up in her withered hand, 
and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak, still 
ever ready to peck and tear her. 

At her feet little Scherau lay asleep. Presently 
she pushed the child with her foot. “ Wake up,” she 
said, as he raised himself still half asleep. “ You have 
young ears — ^it seemed to me that I heard a woman 
scream in Ani’s tent. Do you hear any thing ?” 

“ Yes, indeed,” exclaimed the little one. “ There is 
a noise like crying, and that — that was a scream ! It 
came from out there, from Nemu’s tent.” 


262 


UardA. 


“ Creep through there.” said the witch, “ and see 
what is happening !” 

The child obeyed : Hekt turned her attention again 
to the bird, which no longer perched in her lap, but lay 
on one side, though it still tried to use its talons, when she 
took him up in her hand. 

“ It is all over with him,” muttered the old woman, 
“ and the one I called Rameses is sleeker than ever. 
It is all folly and yet — and yet ! the Regent’s game is 
over, and he has lost it. The creature is stretching 
itself — its head drops — it draws itself up — one more 
clutch at my dress — now it is dead !” 

She contemplated the dead hawk in her lap for 
some minutes, then she took it up, flung it into a comer 
of the tent, and exclaimed : 

“ Good-bye, King Ani. The crown is not for you !” 
Then she went on : “ What project has he in hand now, 
I wonder? Twenty times he has asked me whether 
the great enterprise will succeed; as if I knew any 
more than he! And Nemu too has hinted all kinds of 
things, though he would not speak out. Something is 
going on, and I — and I ? There it comes again !” 

The old woman pressed her hand to her heart and 
closed her eyes, her features were distorted with pain ; 
she did not perceive Scherau’s return, she did not hear 
him call her name, or see that, when she did not answer 
him, he left her again. For an hour or more she re- 
mained unconscious, then her senses returned, but she 
felt as if some ice-cold fluid slowly ran through her 
veins instead of the warm blood. 

“If I had kept a hawk for myself too,” she mut 
tered, “it would soon follow the other one in the corner! 
If only Ani keeps his word, and has me ejnbalmed ! 


UARDA. 


263 


But how can he when he too is so near his end. They 
will let me rot and disappear, and there will be no 
future for me, no meeting with Assa.” 

The old woman remained silent for a long time; 
at last she murmured hoarsely with her eyes fixed on 
the ground : 

“ Death brings release, if only from the torment of 
remembrance. But there is a life beyond the grave. I 
do not, I will not cease to hope. The dead shall all 
be equally judged, and subject to the inscrutable de- 
crees. — Where shall I find him ? Among the blest, or 
among the damned ? And I ? It matters not ! The 
deeper the abyss into which they fling me the better. 
Can Assa, if he is among the blest, remain in bliss, 
when he sees to what he has brought me ? Oh ! they 
must embalm me — I cannot bear to vanish, and rot 
and evaporate into nothingness !” 

While she was still speaking, the dwarf Nemu had 
come into the tent; Scherau, seeing the old woman 
senseless, had run to tell him that his mother was 
lying on the earth with her eyes shut, and was dying. 
The witch perceived the little man. 

“ It is well,” she said, “ that you have come ; I shall 
be dead before sunrise.” 

“Mother!” cried the dwarf horrified, “you shall 
live, and live better than you have done till now I 
Great things are happening, and for us I” 

“ I know, I know,” said Hekt. “ Go away, Scherau 
— now, Nemu, whisper in my ear what is doing?” 

The dwarf felt as if he could not avoid the in- 
fluence of her eye, he went up to her, and said softly — 

“The pavilion, in which the king and his people 
are sleeping, is constructed of wood ; straw and pitch 


264 


UARDA. 


are built into the walls, and laid under the boards. As 
soon as they are gone to rest we shall set the tinder 
thing on fire. The guards are drunk and sleeping.” 

“ Well thought of,” said Hekt. “ Did you plan it ?” 

“ I and my mistress,” said the dwarf not without pride. 

“ You can devise a plot,” said the old woman, “ but 
you are feeble in the working out. Is your plan a 
secret ? Have you clever assistants ?” 

“No one knows of it,” replied the dwarf, “but 
Katuti, Paaker, and I ; we three shall lay the brands 
to the spots we have fixed upon. I am going to the 
rooms of Bent-Anat; Katuti, who can go in and out 
as she pleases, will set fire to the stairs, which lead to 
the upper story, and which fall by touching a spring; 
and Paaker to the king’s apartments.” 

“ Good — good, it may succeed,” gasped the old 
woman. “ But what was the scream in your tent ?” 

The dwarf seemed doubtful about answering; but 
Hekt went on :• 

' “ Speak without fear — the dead are sure to be silent.” 

The dwarf, trembling with agitation, shook off his 
hesitation, and said : 

“ I have found Uarda, the grandchild of Pinem, 
who had disappeared, and I decoyed her here, for she 
and no other shall be my wife, if Ani is king, and if 
Katuti makes me rich and free. She is in the service 
of the Princess Bent-Anat, and sleeps in her ante- 
room, and she must not be burnt with her mistress. 
She insisted on going back to the palace, so, as she 
would fly to the fire like a gnat, and I would not have 
her risk being burnt, I tied her up fast.” 

“ Did she not struggle ?” .said Hekt. 

“ Like a mad thing,” said the dwarf “ But the 


UARDA, 


265 


Regent’s dumb slave, who was ordered by his master 
to obey me in everything to-day, helped me. We 
tied up her mouth that she might not be heard 
screaming !” 

“ Will you leave her alone when you go to do your 
errand ?” 

“Her father is with her !” 

“ Kaschta, the red-beard ?” asked the old woman in 
surprise. “And did he not break you in pieces like 
an earthenware pot ?” 

“ He will not stir,” said Nemu laughing. “ For when 
I found him, I made him so drunk with Ani’s old wine 
that he lies there like a mummy. Is was from him 
that I learned where Uarda was, and I went to her, 
and got her to come with me by telling her that her 
father was very ill, and begged her to go to see him 
once more. She flew after me like a gazelle, and when 
she saw the soldier lying there senseless she threw her- 
self upon him, and called for water to cool his head, 
for he was raving in his dreams of rats and mice that 
had fallen upon him. As it grew late she wanted to 
return to her mistress, and we were obliged to prevent 
her. How handsome she has grown, mother; you can- 
not imagine how pretty she is.” 

“Aye, aye!” said Hekt. “You will have to keep 
an eye upon her when she is your wife.” 

“ I will treat her like the wife of a noble,” said 
Nemu. “And pay a real lady to guard her. But by 
this time Katuti has brought home her daughter, Mena’s 
wife; the stars are sinking and — there — that was the 
first signal. When Katuti whistles the third time we 
are to go to work. Lend me your fire-box, mother, it 
is better than mine.” 

39 


266 


UARDA, 


“ Take it,” said Hekt. “ I shall never need it again. 
It is all over with me! How your hand shakes! Hold 
the wood firmly, or you will drop it before you have 
brought the fire.” 

The dwarf bid the old woman farewell, and she let 
him kiss her without moving. When he was gone, she 
listened eagerly for any sound that might pierce the 
silence of the night, her eyes shone with a keen light, 
and a thousand thoughts flew through her restless 
brain. When she heard the second signal on Katuti’s 
silver whistle, she sat upright and muttered : 

“ That gallows-bird Paaker, his vain aunt and that 
villain Ani, are no match for Rameses, even when he is 
asleep. Ani’s hawk is dead ; he has nothing to hope 
for from Fortune, and I nothing to hope for from him. 
But if Rameses — if the real king would promise me — 
then my poor old body — Yes, that is the thing, that is 
what I will do.” 

She painfully raised herself on her feet with the 
help of her stick, she found a knife and a small flask . 
which she slipped into her dress, and then, bent and 
trembling, with a last effort of her remaining strength 
she dragged herself as far as Nemu’s tent. Here she 
found Uarda bound hand and foot, and Kaschta lying 
on the ground in a heavy drunken slumber. 

The girl shrank together in alarm when she saw 
the old woman, and Scherau, who crouched at her 
side, raised his hands imploringly to the witch. 

“Take this knife, boy,” she said to the little one. 

Gut the ropes the poor thing is tied with. The 
papyrus cords are strong,* saw them with the blade.” 

* Papyrus was used not only for writing on, but also for ropes. The bridge 
of boats on which Xerxes crossed the Hellespont was fastened with cables of 
papyrus. 


f 


UARDA. 


267 


While the boy eagerly followed her instructions 
with all his little might, she rubbed the soldier’s temples 
with an essence which she had in the bottle, and poured 
a few drops of it between his lips. Kaschta came to 
himself, stretched his limbs, and stared in astonishment 
at the place in which he found himself. She gave him 
some water, and desired him to drink it, saying, as 
U arda shook herself free from the bonds : 

“ The Gods have predestined you to great things, 
you white maiden. Listen to what I, old Hekt, am 
telling you. The king’s life is threatened, his and his 
children’s ; I purpose to save them, and I ask no reward 
but this — that he should have my body embalmed and 
interred at Thebes. Swear to me that you will require 
this of him when you have saved him.” 

“ In God’s name what is happening?” cried Uarda. 

“ Swear that you will provide for my burial,” said 
the old woman. 

I swear it !” cried the girl. “ But for God’s sake — ” 

“ Katuti, Paaker, and Nemu are gone to set fire to 
the palace when Rameses is sleeping, in three places. 
Do you hear, Kaschta! Now hasten, fly after the in- 
cendiaries, rouse the servants, and try to rescue the 
king.” 

“Oh fly, father.” cried the girl, and they both 
rushed away in the darkness. 

“ She is honest and will keep her word,” muttered 
Hekt, and she tried to drag herself back to her own 
tent; but her strength failed her half-way. Little 
Scherau tried to support her, but he was too weak; 
she sank down on the sand, and looked out into the 
distance. There she saw the dark mass of the palace, 
from which rose a light that grew broader and broader. 


268 


uarda. 


then clouds of black smoke, then up flew the soaring 
flame, and a swarm of glowing sparks. 

“ Run into the camp, child,” she cried, “ cry fire, and 
wake the sleepers.” 

Scherau ran off shouting as loud as he could. 

The old woman pressed her hand to her side, she 
muttered: “There it is again.” “ In the other world — Assa 
— Assa,” and her trembling lips were silent for ever. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

Katuti had kept her unfortunate nephew Paaker 
concealed in one of her servants’ tents. He had escaped 
wounded from the battle at Kadesh, and in terrible pain 
he had succeeded, by the help of an ass which he had 
purchased from a peasant, in reaching by paths known 
to hardly any one but himself, the cave where he had 
previously left his brother. Here he found his faithful 
Ethiopian slave, who nursed him till he was strong 
enough to set out on his journey to Egypt. He reached 
Pelusium, after many privations, disguised as an Ismaelite 
camel-driver ; he left his servant, who might have be- 
trayed him, behind in the cave. 

Before he was permitted to pass the fortifications, 
which lay across the isthmus which parts the Mediterra- 
nean from the Red Sea, and which were intended to 
protect Egypt from the incursions of the nomad tribes 
of the Chasu,* he was subjected lo a strict interrogatory, 
and among ’other questions was asked whether he had 
nowhere met with the traitor Paaker, who was 

* Ebers. Aegypten und die Bucher Mose s, p. 78. 


UARDA. 


269 


minutely described to him. No one recognized in the 
shrunken, grey -haired, one-eyed camel-driver, the broad- 
shouldered, muscular and thick-legged pioneer. To dis- 
guise himself the more effectually, he procured some 
hair-dye* — a cosmetic known in all ages — and blackened 
himself. Katuti had arrived at Pelusium with Ani 
some time before, to superintend the construction of 
the royal pavilion. He ventured to approach her dis- 
guised as a negro beggar, with a palm-branch in his 
hand. She gave him some money and questioned him 
concerning his native country, for she made it her 
business to secure the favor even of the meanest; but 
though she appeared to take an interest in his an- 
swers, she did not recognize him; now for the first 
time he felt secure, and the next day he went up to 
her again, and told her who he was. 

The widow was not unmoved by the frightful altera- 
tion in her nephew, and although she knew that even 
Ani had decreed that any intercourse with the traitor 
was to be punished by death, she took him at once 
into her service, for she had never had greater need 
than now to employ the desperate enemy of the king 
and of her son-in-law. 

The mutilated, despised, and hunted man kept him- 
self far from the other servants, regarding the meaner 
folk with undiminished scorn. He thought seldom, and 
only vaguely of Katuti’s daughter, for love had quite 
given place to hatred, and only one thing now seemed 
to him worth living for — the hope of working with others 
to cause his enemies’ downfall, and of being the in- 

* In my papyrus there are several recipes for the preparation of hair-dye ; 
one is ascribed to the Lady Schesch, the mother of Teta, wife of the first lang 
of Egypt. The earliest of all the recipes preserved to us is a prescription fpt 
dyeing the hair. 


270 


UARDA. 


strument of their death; so he offered himself to the 
widow a willing and welcome tool, and the dull flash 
in his uninjured eye when she set him the task of 
setting fire to the king’s apartments, showed her that 
in the Mohar she had found an ally she might depend 
on to the uttermost. 

Paaker had carefully examined the scene of his ex- 
ploit before the king’s arrival. Under the windows of 
the king’s rooms, at least forty feet from the ground, 
was a narrow parapet resting on the ends of the beams 
which supported the rafters on which lay the floor of 
the upper story in which the king slept. These rafters 
had been smeared with pitch, and straw had been laid 
between them, and the pioneer would have known how 
to find the opening where he was to put in the brand even 
if he had been blind of both eyes. 

When Katuti first sounded her whistle he slunk to 
his post ; he was challenged by no watchman, for the 
few guards who had been placed in the immediate 
vicinity of the pavilion, had all gone to sleep under the 
influence of the Regent’s wine. Paaker climbed up to 
about the height of two men from the gi'ound by 
the help of the ornamental carving on the outside wall 
of the palace; there a rope ladder was attached, he 
clambered up this, and soon stood on the parapet, 
above which were the windows of the king’s rooms, and 
below which the fire was to be laid. 

Rameses’ room was brightly illuminated. Paaker 
could see into it without being seen, and could hear 
every word that was spoken within. The king was sit- 
ting in an arm-chair, and looked thoughtfully at tlie 
ground ; before him stood the Regent, and Mena stood 


UARDA. 


271 


by his couch, holding in his hand the king’s sleeping- 
robe. 

Presently Rameses raised his head, and said, as he 
offered his hand with frank affection to Ani : 

“ Let me bring this glorious day to a worthy end, 
cousin. I have found you my true and faithful friend, 
and I had been in danger of believing those over-anxious 
counsellors who spoke evil of you. I am never prone 
to distrust, but a number of things occurred together 
that clouded my judgment, and I did you injustice. I 
am sorry, sincerely sorry ; nor am I ashamed to apolo- 
gize to you for having for an instant doubted your good 
intentions. You are my good friend — and I will prove 
to you that I am yours. There is my hand — take it; 
and all Egypt shall know that Rameses trusts no man 
more implicitly than his Regent Ani. I will ask you 
to undertake to be my guard of honor to-night — we 
will share this room. I sleep here; when I lie down 
on my couch take your place on the divan yonder.” 

Ani had taken Rameses’ offered hand, but now he 
turned pale as he looked down. Paaker could see 
straight into his face, and it was not without difficulty 
that he suppressed a scornful laugh. 

Rameses did not observe the Regent’s dismay, for 
he had signed to Mena to come closer to him. 

“ Before I sleep,” said the king, “ I will bring matters 
to an end with you too. You have put your wife’s con- 
stancy to a severe test, and she has trusted you with a 
childlike simplicity that is often wiser than the argu- 
ments of sages, because she loved you honestly, and is 
herself incapable of guile. I promised you that I would 
grant you a wish if your faith in her was justified. Now 
tell me what is your will ?” 


272 


UARDA. 


Mena fell on his knees, and covered the king’s robe 
with kisses. 

“Pardon!” he exclaimed. “Nothing but pardon. 
My crime was a heavy one, I know ; but I was driven 
to it by scorn and fury — it was as if I saw the dis- 
honoring hand of Paaker stretched out to seize my 
innocent wife, who, as I now know, loathes him as a 
toad — ” 

“ What was that ?” exclaimed the king. “ I thought 
I heard a groan outside.” 

He went up to the window and looked out, but he 
did not see the pioneer, who watched every motion of 
the king, and who, as soon as he perceived that his in- 
voluntary sigh of anguish had been heard, stretched 
himself close under the balustrade. Mena had not 
risen from his knees when the king once more turned 
to him. 

“ Pardon me,” he said again. “ Let me be near thee 
again as before, and drive thy chariot. I live only 
through thee, I am of no worth but through thee, and 
by thy favor, my king, my lord, my father !” 

- Rameses signed to his favorite to rise. “ Your re- 
quest was granted,” said he, “ before you made it. I am 
still in your debt on your fair wife’s account. Thank 
Nefert — not me, and let us give thanks to the Immortals 
this day with especial fervor. What has it not brought 
forth for us I It has restored to me you two friends, 
whom I regarded as lost to me, and has given me in 
Pentaur another son.” 

A low whistle sounded through the night air; it was 
Katuti’s last signal. 

Paaker blew up the tinder, laid it in the hole under 


UARDA. 


273 


the parapet, and then, unmindful of his own danger, 
raised himself to listen for any further words. 

“ I entreat thee,” said the Regent, approaching 
Rameses, “ to excuse me. I fully appreciate thy favors, 
but the labors of the last few days have been too much 
for me; 1 can hardly stand on my feet, and the guard 
of honor — ” 

“ Mena will watch,” said the king. “ Sleep in all 
security, cousin. I will have it known to all men that I 
have put away from me all distrust of you. Give me my 
night-robe, Mena. Nay — one thing more I must tell you. 
Youth smiles on the young, Ani. Bent-Anat has chosen 
a worthy husband, my preserver, the poet Pentaur. He 
was said to be a man of humble origin, the son of a 
gardener of the House of Seti ; and now what do 1 learn 
through Ameni ? He is the true son of the dead Mohar, 
and the foul traitor Paaker is the gardener’s son. A witch 
in the Necropolis changed the children. 'Phat is the best 
news of all that has reached me on this propitious day, 
for the Mohar’s widow, the noble Setchem, has been 
brought here, and I should have been obliged to choose 
between two sentences on her as the mother of the vil- 
lain who has escaped us. Either I must have sent her 
to the quarries, or have had her beheaded before 
all the people — In the name of the Gods, what is 
that ?” 

They heard a loud cry in a man’s voice, and at the 
same instant a noise as if some heavy mass had fallen to 
the ground from a great height. Rameses and Mena has- 
tened to the window, but started back, for they were met 
by a cloud of smoke. 

“ Call the watch !” cried the king. 


274 


UARDA. 


“ Go, you,” exclaimed Mena to Ani. I will not 
leave the king again in danger.” 

Ani fled away like an escaped prisoner, but he could 
not get far, for, before he could descend the stairs to the 
lower story, they fell in before his very eyes ; Katuti, 
after she had set fire to the interior of the palace, had 
made them fall by one blow of a hammer. Ani saw 
her robe as she herself fled, clenched his fist with rage 
as he shouted her name, and then, not knowing what 
he did, rushed headlong through the corridor into which 
I he different royal apartments opened. 

The fearful crash of the falling stairs brought the 
king and Mena also out of the sleeping-room. 

“ There lie the stairs ! that is serious !” said the king 
cooly ; then he went back into his room, and looked out 
of a window to estimate the danger. Bright flames 
were already bursting from the northern end of the. 
palace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day ; 
the southern wing of the pavilion was not yet on fire. 
Mena observed the parapet from which Paaker had 
fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found it 
firm enough to bear several persons. He looked round, 
particularly at the wing not yet gained by the flames, 
and exclaimed in a loud voice : 

“ The fire is intentional ! it is done on purpose. — 
See there ! a man is squatting down and pushing a 
brand into the woodwork.” 

He leaped back into the room, which was now fill- 
ing with smoke, snatched the king’s bow and quiver, 
which he himself had hung up at the bed-head, took 
careful aim, and with one cry the incendiary fell dead. 

A few hours later the dwarf Nemu was found with 
the charioteer’s arrow through his heart. ^ After setting 


UARDA. 


275 


fire to Bent-Anat’s rooms, he had determined to lay a 
brand to the wing of the palace where, with the other 
princes, Uarda’s friend Rameri was sleeping. 

Mena had again leaped out of window, and was 
estimating the height of the leap to the ground; the 
Pharaoh’s room was getting more and more filled with 
smoke, and flames began to break through the seams 
of the boards. Outside the palace as well as within 
every one was waking up to terror and excitement. 

“ Fire ! fire ! an incendiary! Help ! Save the king!’* 
cried Kaschta, who rushed on, followed by a crowd of 
guards whom he had roused; Uarda had flown to 
call Bent-Anat, as she knew the way to her room. The 
king had got on to the parapet outside the window 
with Mena, and was calling to the soldiers. 

“ Half of you get into the house, and first save the 
princess ; the other half keep the fire from catching the 
south wing. I will try to get there.” 

But Nemu’s brand had been effectual, the flames 
flared up, and the soldiers strained every nerve to con- 
quer them. Their ciqes mingled with the crackling 
and snapping of the dry wood, and the roar of the 
flames, with the trumpet calls of the awakening troops, 
and the beating of drums. The young princes ap- 
peared at a window; they had tied their clothes 
together to form a rope, and one by one escaped 
down it. 

Rameses called to them with words of encourage- 
ment, but he himself was unable to take any means of 
escape, for though the parapet on which he stood was 
tolerably wide, and ran round the whole of the build- 
ing, at about every six feet it was broken by spaces of 
about ten paces. The fire was spreading and growing, 


276 


UARDA. 


and glowing sparks flew round him and his companion 
like chaff from the winnowing fan. 

“ Bring some straw and make a heap below !” 
shouted Rameses, above the roar of the conflagration. 

“ There is no escape but by a leap down.” 

The flames rushed out of the windows of the 
king’s room; it was impossible to return to it, but 
neither the king nor Mena lost his self-possession. 
When Mena saw the twelve princes descending to the 
ground, he shouted through his hands, using them as 
a speaking trumpet, and called to Rameri, who was 
about to slip down the rope they had contrived, the 
last of them all. 

“ Pull up the rope, and keep it from injury till I 
come.” 

Rameri obeyed the order, and before Rameses 
could interfere, Mena had sprung across the space 
which divided one piece of the balustrade from an- 
other. The king’s blood ran cold as Mena, a second 
time, ventured the frightful leap; one false step, and 
he must meet with the same fearful death as his 
enemy Paaker. 

While the bystanders watched him in breathless 
silence — while the crackling of the wood, the roar 
of the flames, and the dull thump of falling timber 
mingled with the distant chant of a procession of 
priests who were now approaching the burning pile, 
Nefert roused by little Scherau knelt on the bare 
ground in fervent and passionate prayer to the saving 
Gods. She watched every movement of her husband, 
and she bit her lips till they bled not to cry out. She 
felt that he was acting bravely and nobly, and that he 
was lost if even for an instant his attention were dis- 


UARDA. 


277 


traded from his perilous footing. Now he had reached 
Rameri, and bound one end of the rope made out of 
cloaks and handkerchiefs, round his body; then he 
gave the other end to Rameri, who held fast to the 
window-sill, and prepared once more to spring. Nefert 
saw him ready to leap, she pressed her hands upon 
her lips to repress a scream, she shut her eyes, and 
when she opened them again he had accomplished 
the first leap, and at the second the Gods preserved 
him from falling ; at the third the king held out his 
hand to him, and saved him from a fall. Then Rameses 
helped him to unfasten the rope from round his waist 
to fasten it to the end of a beam. 

Rameri now loosened the other end, and followed 
Mena’s example ; he too, practised in athletic exercises 
in the school of the House of Seti, succeeded in ac- 
complishing the three tremendous leaps, and soon the 
king stood in safety on the ground. Rameri followed 
him, and then Mena, whose faithful wife went to meet 
him, and wiped the sweat from his throbbing temples. 

Rameses hurried to the north wing, where Bent- 
Anat had her apartments; he found her safe indeed, 
but wringing her hands, for her young favorite Uarda 
had disappeared in the flames after she had roused 
her and saved her with her father’s assistance. 

Kaschta ran up and down in front of the burning 
pavilion, tearing his hair ; now calling his child in tones 
of anguish, now holding his breath to listen for an 
answer. To rush at random into the immense burn- 
ing building would have been madness. The king 
observed the unhappy man, and set him to lead tlie 
soldiers, whom he had commanded to hew down the 
wall of Bent-Anat’s rooms, so as to rescue the girl who 


278 


UARDA. 


might be within. Kaschta seized an axe, and raised 
it to strike. 

But he thought that he heard blows from within 
against one of the shutters of the ground-floor, which 
by Katuti’s orders had been securely closed ; he fol- 
lowed the sound — he was not mistaken, the knocking 
could be distinctly heard. 

With all his might he struck the edge of the axe 
between the shutter and the wall, and a stream of smoke 
poured out of the new outlet, and before him, en- 
veloped in its black clouds, stood a staggering man 
who held Uarda in his arms. Kaschta sprang forward 
into the midst of the smoke and sparks, and snatched 
his daughter from the arms of her preserver, who fell half 
smothered on his knees. He rushed out into the air 
with his light and precious burden, and as he pressed 
his lips to her closed eyelids his eyes were wet, and 
there rose up before him the image of the woman who 
bore her, the wife that had stood as the solitary green 
palm-tree in the desert waste of his life. But only for 
a few seconds — Bent-Anat herself took Uarda into her 
care, and he hastened back to the burning house. 

He had recognized his daughter’s preserver; it was 
the physician Nebsecht, who had not quitted the princess 
since their meeting on Sinai, and had found a place 
among her suite as her personal physician. 

The fresh air had rushed into the room through 
the opening of the shutter, the broad flames streamed 
out of the window, but still Nebsecht was alive, for 
his groans could be heard through the smoke. Once 
more Kaschta rushed towards the window, the by- 
standers could see that the ceiling of the room was 


UARDA. 


279 


about to fall, and called out to warn him, but he 
was already astride the sill. 

“ I signed myself his slave with my blood,” he 
cried, “Twice he has saved my child, and now I will 
pay my debt,” and he disappeared into the burning 
room. 

He soon reappeared with Nebsecht in his arms, 
whose robe was already scorched by the flames. He 
could be seen approaching the window with his heavy 
burden ; a hundred soldiers, and with them Pentaur, 
pressed forward to help him, and took the senseless 
leech out of the arms of the soldier, who lifted him 
over the window sill. 

Kaschta was on the point of following him, but be- 
fore he could swing himself over, the beams above 
gave way and fell, burying the brave son of the 
paraschites. 

Pentaur had his insensible friend carried to his 
tent, and helped the physicians to bind up his burns. 

When the cry of fire had been first raised, Pentaur 
was sitting in earnest conversation with the high-priest; 
he had learned that he was not the son of a gardener, 
but a descendant of one of the noblest families in the 
land. The foundations of life seemed to be subverted 
under his feet, Ameni’s revelation lifted him out of 
the dust and set him on the marble floor of a palace ; 
and yet Pentaur was neither excessively surprised nor 
inordinately rejoiced; he was so well used to find his 
joys and sufferings depend on the man within him, 
and not on the circumstances without. 

As soon as he heard the cry of fire, he hastened to 
^ the burning pavilion, and when he saw the king’s 
danger, he set himself at the head of a number of sol- 


28 o 


UARDA. 


diers who had hurried up from the camp, intending 
to venture an attempt to save Rameses from the inside 
of the house. Among those who followed him in this 
hopeless effort was Katuti’s reckless son, who had dis- 
tinguished himself by his valor before Kadesh, and 
who hailed this opportunity of again proving his 
courage. Falling waUs choked up the way in front of 
these brave adventurers; but it was not till several 
had fallen choked or struck down by burning logs, that 
they made up their minds to retire — one of the first 
that was killed was Katuti’s son, Nefert’s brother. 

Uarda had been carried into the nearest tent. Her 
pretty head lay in Bent-Anat’s lap, and Nefert tried to 
. restore her to animation by rubbing her temples with 
strong essences. Presently the girl’s lips moved : with 
returning consciousness all she had seen and suffered 
during the last hour or two recurred to her mind ; she 
felt herself rushing through the camp with her father, 
hurrying through the corridor to the princess’s rooms, 
while he broke in the doors closed by Katuti’s orders ; 
she saw Bent-Anat as she roused her, and conducted 
her to safety ; she remembered her horror when, just as 
she reached the door, she discovered that she had left 
in her chest her jewel, the only relic of her lost 
mother, and her rapid return which was observed by 
no one but by the leech Nebsecht. 

Again she seemed to live through the anguish she 
had felt till she once more had the trinket safe in her 
bosom, the horror that fell upon her when she found 
her escape impeded by smoke and flames, and the 
weakness which overcame her; and she felt as if the 
strange white-robed priest once more raised her in his 
arms. She remembered the tenderness of his eyes as 


UARDA. 


281 

he looked into hers, and she smiled half gratefully but 
half displeased at the tender kiss which had been pressed 
on her lips before she found herself in her father’s 
strong arms. 

“ How sweet she is !” said Bent-Anat. “ I believe 
poor Nebsecht is right in saying that her mother was 
the daughter of some great man among the foreign 
people. Look what pretty little hands and feet, and 
her skin is as clear as Phoenician glass.” 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

While the friends were occupied in restoring 
Uarda to animation, and in taking affectionate care of 
her, Katuti was walking restlessly backwards and for- 
wards in her tent. 

Soon after she had slipped out for the purpose of 
setting fire to the palace, Scherau’s cry had waked up 
Nefert, and Katuti found her daughter’s bed empty 
when, with blackened hands and limbs trembling with 
agitation, she came back from her criminal task. 

Now she waited in vain for Nemu and Paaker. 

Her steward, whom she sent on repeated messages 
of enquiry whether the Regent had returned, constantly 
brought back a negative answer, and added the infor- 
mation that he had found the body of old Hekt lying 
on the open ground. The widow’s heart sank with 
fear; she was full of dark forebodings while she lis- 
tened to the shouts of the people engaged in putting 
out the fire, the roll of drums, and the trumpets of 

the soldiers calling each other to the help of the king. 

40 


282 


UARDA. 


To these sounds now was added the dull crash of 
falling timbers and walls. 

A faint smile played upon her thin lips, and she 
thought to herself: “There — that perhaps fell on the 
king, and my precious son-in-law, who does not de- 
serve such a fate — if we had not fallen into disgrace, 
and if since the occurrences before Kadesh he did not 
cling to his indulgent lord as a calf follows a cow.” 

She gathered fresh courage, and fancied she could 
hear the voice of Ethiopian troops hailing the Regent 
as king — could see Ani decorated with the crown of 
Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on Rameses’ throne, 
and herself by his side in rich though unpretending 
splendor. She pictured herself with her son and 
daughter as enjoying Mena’s estate, freed from debt 
and increased by Ani’s generosity, and then a new, in- 
toxicating hope came into her mind. Perhaps already 
at this moment her daughter was a widow, and why 
should she not be so fortunate as to induce Ani to 
select her child, the prettiest woman in Thebes, for his 
wife ? Then she, the mother of the queen, would be 
indeed unimpeachable, and all-powerful. She had long 
since come to regard the pioneer as a tool to be cast 
aside, nay soon to be utterly destroyed; his wealth 
might probably at some future time be bestowed upon 
her son, who had distinguished himself at Kadesh, 
and whom Ani must before long promote to be his 
charioteer or the commander of the chariot warriors. 

Flattered by these fancies, she forgot every care as 
she walked faster and faster to and fro in her tent. 
Suddenly the steward, whom she had this time sent to 
the very scene of the fire, rushed into the tent, and 
with every token of terror broke to her the news that 


UARDA. 


283 


the king and his diarioteer were hanging in mid air 
on a narrow wooden i)arapet, and that unless some 
miracle happened they must inevitably be killed. It 
was said that incendiaries had occasioned the fire, and 
he, the steward, had hastened forward to prepare her 
for evil news as the mangled body of the pioneer, 
which had been identified by the ring on his finger, 
and the poor little corpse of Nemu, pierced through 
by an arrow, had been carried past him. 

Katuti was silent for a moment. 

“And the king’s sons?” she asked with an anxious 
sigh. 

“ The Gods be praised,” replied the steward, “ they 
succeeded in letting themselves down to the ground 
by a rope made of their garments knotted together, 
and some were already safe when I came away.” 

Katuti’s face clouded darkly; once more she sent 
forth her messenger. The minutes of his absence 
seemed like days ; her bosom heaved in stormy agita- 
tion, then for a moment she controlled herself, and 
again her heart seemed to cease beating — she closed 
her eyes as if her anguish of anxiety was too much for 
her strength. At last, long after sunrise, the steward 
reappeared. 

Pale, trembling, hardly able to control his voice, 
he threw himself on the ground at her feet crying 
out : 

“ Alas ! this night ! prepare for the worst, mistress ! 
May Isis comfort thee, who saw thy son fall in the 
service of his king and father ! May Amon, the great 
God of Thebes, give thee strength ! Our pride, our 
hope, thy son is slain, killed by a falling beam.” 

Pale and still as if frozen, Katuti shed not a tear; 


284 


UARDA. 


for a minute she did not speak, then she asked in a 
dull tone : 

“ And Rameses ? ” 

“ The Gods be praised !” answered the servant, “ he 
is safe — rescued by Mena !” 

And Ani ?” 

“ Burnt ! — they found his body disfigured out of all 
recognition; they knew him again by the jewels he 
wore at the banquet.” 

Katuti gazed into vacancy, and the steward started 
back as from a mad woman when, instead of bursting 
into tears, she clenched her small jewelled hands, shook 
her fists in the air, and broke into loud, wild laughter ; 
then, startled at the sound of her own voice, she sud- 
denly became silent and fixed her eyes vacantly on 
the ground. She neither saw nor heard that the cap- 
tain of the watch, who was called “ the eyes and ears of 
the king,” had come in through the door of her tent 
followed by several officers and a scribe ; he came up 
to her, and called her by her name. Not till the 
steward timidly touched her did she collect her senses 
like one suddenly roused from deep sleep. 

“ What are you doing in my tent ?” she asked the 
officer, drawing herself up haughtily. 

In the name of the chief judge of Thebes,” said 
the captain of the watch solemnly. “ I arrest you, and 
hail you before the high court of justice, to defend 
yourself against the grave and capital charges of high 
treason, attempted regicide, and incendiarism.” 

“ I am ready,” said the widow, and a scornful 
smile curled her lips. Then with her usual dignity she 
pointed to a se^t and said : 

Be seated while I dress.” 


UARDA. 


285 

I 

The officer bowed, but remained standing at the 
door of the tent while she arranged her black hair, set. 
her diadem on her brow, opened her little ointment 
chest, and took from it a small phial of the rapid 
poison strychnine, which some months before she had 
procured through Nemu from the old witch Hekt. 

“ My mirror !” she called to a maid servant, who 
squatted in a corner of the tent. She held the metal 
mirror so as to conceal her face from the captain of 
the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied 
it at one mouthful. The mirror fell from her hand, 
she staggered, a deadly convulsion seized her — the 
officer rushed forward, and while she fixed her dying 
look upon him she said : 

“ My game is lost, but Ameni — tell Ameni that he 
will not win either.” 

She fell forward, murmured Nefert’s name, struggled 
convulsively and was dead. 

When the draught of happiness which the Gods 
prepare for some few men, seems to flow clearest and 
purest. Fate rarely fails to infuse into it some drop of 
bitterness. And yet we should not therefore disdain 
it, for it is that very drop of bitterness which warns 
us to drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in mod- 
eration. 

The perfect happiness of Mena and Nefert was 
troubled by the fearful death of Katuti, but both felt as 
if they now for the first time knew the full strength of 
their love for each other. Mena had to make up to 
his wife for the loss of Vnother and brother, and Nefert 
to restore to her husband much that he had been 
robbed of by her relatives, and they felt that they had 


286 


UARDA. 


met again not merely for pleasure but to be to each 
other a support and a consolation. 

Rameses quitted the scene of the fire full of grati- 
tude to the Gods who had shown such grace to him 
and his. He ordered numberless steers to be sacri- 
ficed, and thanksgiving festivals to be held throughout 
the land ; but he was cut to the heart by the betrayal 
to which he had fallen a victim. He longed — as he 
always did in moments when the balance of his mind 
had been disturbed — for an hour of solitude, and 
retired to the tent wdiich had been hastily erected for 
him. He could not bear to enter the splendid pavilion 
which had been Ani’s ; it seemed to him infested with 
the leprosy of falsehood and treason. 

For an hour he remained alone, and weighed the 
worst he had suffered at the hands of men against 
that which was good and cheering, and he found that 
the good far outweighed the evil. He vividly realized 
the magnitude of his debt of gratitude, not to the 
Immortals only, but also to his earthly friends, as he 
recalled every moment of this morning’s experience. 

“ Gratitude,” he said to himself, “ was impressed 
on you by your mother ; you yourself have taught your 
children to be grateful. Piety is gratitude to the Gods, 
and he only is really generous who does not forget the 
gratitude he owes to men.” 

He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when 
he sent for Bent-Anat and Bentaur to be brought to 
his tent. He made his daughter relate at full length 
how the poet had won her love, and though he fre- 
quently interrupted her with blame as well as praise, 
his heart was full of fatherly joy when he laid his dar- 
ling’s hand in that of the poet. 


UARDA. 


287 


Bent-Anat laid her head in full content on the breast 
of the noble Assa’s grandson, but she would have clung 
not less fondly to Pentaur the gardener’s son. 

“ Now you are one of my own children,” said 
Rameses ; and he desired the poet to remain with him 
while he commanded the heralds, ambassadors, and in- 
terpreters to bring to him the Asiatic princes, who were 
detained in their own tents on the farther side of the Nile, 
that he might conclude with them such a treaty of peace 
as might continue valid for generations to come. Before 
they arrived, the young princes came to their father’s 
tent, and learned from his own lips the noble birth of 
Pentaur, and that they owed it to their sister that in him 
they saw another brother; they welcomed him with 
sincere affection, and all, especially Rameri, warmly 
congratulated the handsome and worthy couple. 

The king then called Rameri forward from among 
his brothers, and thanked him before them all for his 
brave conduct during the fire. He had already been in- 
vested with the robe of manhood* after the battle of Ka- 
desh ; he was now appointed to the command of a legion 
of chariot-warriors, and the order of the lion to wear 
round his neck was bestowed on him for his bravery.** 
The prince knelt, and thanked his father ; but Rameses 
took the curly head in his hands and said : 

‘•You have won praise and reward by your splen- 
did deeds from the father whom you have saved and 


* The naval officer Ahmes relates in the biographical inscription in his tomb 
at el Kab that he was invested with the robe of manhood, and “ took a house,” 
or in other words married. 

** The distinction called “ the order of the lion” was received by commander- 
in-chief Amen em Heb, who lived under Thotmes III. The very interesting in- 
scription on his tomb which I discovered, I translated and treated in detail in the 
Zeitschrift derDeutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1876 and 1877. 


288 


UARDA. 


filled with pride. But the king watches over the laws,* 
and guides the destiny of this land, the king must blame 
you, nay perhaps punish you. You could not yield to the 
discipline of school, where we all must learn to obey if 
we would afterwards exercise our authority with modera- 
tion, and without any orders you left Egypt and joined the 
army. You showed the courage and strength of a man, 
but the folly of a boy in all that regards prudence and 
foresight — things harder to learn for the son of a race of 
heroes than mere hitting and slashing at random ; you, 
without experience, measured yourself against masters 
of the Art of war, and what was the consequence ? 
Twice you fell a prisoner into the hands of the enemy, 
and I had to ransom you. 

“ The king of the Danaids gave you up in exchange 
for his daughter, and he rejoices long since in the restor- 
ation of his child ; but we, in losing her, lost the most 
powerful means of coercing the seafaring nations of the 
islands and northern coasts of the great sea** who are 
constantly increasing in might and daring, and so dimin- 
ished our chances of securing a solid and abiding 
peace. 

“ Thus — through the careless wilfulness of a boy, the 
great work is endangered which I had hoped to have 
achieved. It grieves me particularly to humiliate your 
spirit to-day, when I have had so much reason to en- 
courage you with praise. Nor will I punish you, only 
warn you and teach you. The mechanism of the state 
is like the working of the cogged wheels which move 
the water-works on the shore of the Nile — if one 
tooth is missing the whole comes to a stand-still 


* A title frequently given to the Pharaohs. 


** The Mediterranean Sea. 


UARDA. 


289 


however strong the beasts that labor to turn it. Each 
of you — bear this in mind — is a main-wheel in the 
great machine of the state, and can serve an end only 
by acting unresistingly in obedience to the motive 
power. Now rise ! we may perhaps succeed in obtain- 
ing good security from the Asiatic king, though we 
have lost our hostage.” 

Heralds at this moment marched into the tent, and 
announced that the representative of the Cheta king 
and the allied princes were in attendance in the coun- 
cil tent; Rameses put on the crown of Upper and 
Lower Egypt and all his royal adornments ; the cham- 
berlain who carried the insignia of his power, and his 
head scribe with his decoration of plumes marched be- 
fore him, while his sons, the commanders in chief, and 
the interpreters followed him. Rameses took his seat 
on his throne with great dignity, and the sternest 
gravity marked his demeanor while he received the 
homage of the conquered and fettered kings. 

The Asiatics kissed the earth at his feet, only the 
king of the Danaids did no more than bow before 
him. Rameses looked wrathfully at him, and ordered 
the interpreter to ask him whether he considered him- 
self conquered or no, and the answer was given that 
he had not come before the Pharaoh as a prisoner, 
and that the obeisance which Rameses required of 
him was regarded as a degradation according to the 
customs of his free-born people, who prostrated them- 
selves only before the Gods. He hoped to become an 
ally of the king of Egypt, and he asked would he 
desire to call a degraded man his friend ? 

Rameses measured the proud and noble figure 
before him with a glance, and said severely : 


290 


UARDA. 


“ I am prepared to treat for peace only with such 
of my enemies as are willing to bow to the double 
crown that I wear. If you persist in your refusal, you 
and your people will have no part in the favorable 
conditions that I am prepared to grant to these, your 
allies.” 

The captive prince preserved his dignified de^ 
meanor, which was nevertheless free from insolence, 
when these words of the king were interpreted to him, 
and replied that he had come intending to procure 
peace at any cost, but that he never could nor would 
grovel ill the dust at any man’s feet nor before any 
crown. He would depart on the following day ; one 
favor, however, he requested in his daughter’s name 
and his own — and he had heard that the Egyptians 
respected women. The king knew, of course, that his 
charioteer Mena had treated his daughter, not as a 
prisoner but as a sister, and Praxilla now felt a wish, 
which he himself shared, to bid farewell to the noble 
Mena, and his wife, and to thank him for his mag- 
nanimous generosity. Would Rameses permit him once 
more to cross the Nile before his departure, and with 
his daughter to visit Mena in his tent. 

Rameses granted his prayer: the prince left the 
tent, and the negotiations began. 

In a few hours they were brought to a close, for 
the Asiatic and Egyptian scribes had agreed, in the 
course of the long march southwards, on the stipula- 
tions to be signed ; the treaty itself was to be drawn 
up after the articles had been carefully considered, 
and to be signed in the city of Rameses called Tanis 
— or, by the numerous settlers in its neighborhood, 
Zoan, The Asiatic princes were to dine as guests with 


UARDA. 


291 


the king; but they sat at a separate table, as the Egyp- 
tians would have been defiled by sitting at the same 
table -.vith strangers. 

Rameses was not perfectly satisfied. If the Danaids 
went away without concluding a treaty with him, it was 
to be expected that the peace which he was so earn- 
estly striving for would before long be again disturbed ; 
and he nevertheless felt that, out of regard for the other 
conquered princes, he could not forego any jot of the 
humiliation which he had required of their king, and 
which he believed to be due to himself — though he had 
been greatly impressed by his dignified manliness and 
by the bravery of the troops that had followed him 
into the field. 

The sun was sinking when Mena, who that day had 
leave of absence from the king, came in great excite- 
ment up to the table where the princes were sitting 
and craved the king’s permission to make an important 
communication. Rameses signed consent; the char- 
ioteer went close up to him, and they held a short but 
eager conversation in a low voice. 

Presently the king stood up and said, speaking to his 
daughter: 

‘‘This day which began so horribly will end joy- 
fully. The fair child who saved you to-day, but who 
so nearly fell a victim to the flames, is of noble 
origin.” 

“She comes of a royal house,” said Rameri, disre- 
spectfully interrupting his father. Rameses looked at 
him reprovingly. “ My sons are silent,” he said, “ till I 
ask them to speak.” 

Tlie prince colored and looked down; the king 
signed to Bent-Anat and Pentaur, begged his guests to 


292 


UARDA. 


excuse him for a short time, and was about to leave 
the tent; but Bent-Anat went up to him, and whis- 
pered a few words to him with reference to her brother. 
Not in vain : the king paused, and reflected for a few 
moments; then he looked at Rameri, who stood abashed, 
and as if rooted to the spot where he stood. The 
king called his name, and beckoned him to follow 
him. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

Rameri had rushed off to summon the physicians, 
while Bent-Anat was endeavoring to restore the rescued 
Uarda to consciousness, ami he followed them into his 
sister’s tent. He gazed with tender anxiety into the 
face of the half suffocated girl, who, though uninjured, 
still remained unconscious, and took her hand to press 
his lips to her slender fingers, but Bent-Anat pushed him 
gently away ; then in low tones that trembled with emo- 
tion he implored her not to send him away, and told 
her how dear the girl whose life he had saved in the 
fight in the Necropolis had become to him — how, since 
his departure for Syria, he had never ceased to think 
of her night and day, and that he desired to make her 
his wife. 

Bent-Anat was startled ; she reminded her brother 
of the stain that lay on the child of the paraschites 
and through which she herself had suffered so much; 
but Rameri answered eagerly : 

“ In Egypt rank and birth are derived through the 
mother and Kaschta’s dead wife — ” 

“ I know,” interrupted Bent-Anat. Nebsecht has 


UARDA. 


293 


already told us that she was a dumb woman, a prisoner 
of war, and I myself believe that she was of no mean 
house, for Uarda is nobly formed in face and figure.” 

And her skin is as fine as the petal of a flower,” 
cried Rameri. “ Her voice is like the ring of pure gold, 
and — Oh ! look, she is moving. Uarda, open your eyes, 
Uarda! When the sun rises we praise the Gods. Open 
your eyes ! how thankful, how joyful I shall be if those 
two suns only rise again.” 

Bent-Anat smiled, and drew her brother away from 
the heavily-breathing girl, for a leech came into the tent 
to say that a warm medicated bath had been prepared 
and was ready for Uarda. The princess ordered her 
waiting-women to help lift the senseless girl, and was 
preparing to follow her when a message from her father 
required her presence in his tent. She could guess at 
the significance of this command, and desired Rameri 
to leave her that she might dress in festal garments ; 
she could entrust Uarda to the care of Nefert during 
her absence;. 

“She is kind and gentle, and she knows Uarda so 
well,” said the princess, “ and the necessity of caring 
for this dear little creature will do her good. Her heart 
is torn between sorrow for her lost relations, and joy 
at being united again to her love. My father has given 
Mena leave of absence from his office for several days, 
and I have excused her from her attendance on me, 
for the time during which we were so necessary to ^ 
each other really came to an end yesterday. I feel, 
Rameri, as if we, after our escape, were like the sacred 
phoenix which comes to Heliopolis and burns itself to 
death only to soar again from its ashes young and radiant 
— blessed and blessing !” 


m 


uarda. 


When her brother had left her, she threw herself 
before the image of her mother and prayed long and 
earnestly; she poured an offering of sweet perfume 
on the little altar of the Goddess Hath or, which always 
accompanied her, had herself dressed in happy pre- 
paration for meeting her father, and — she did not con- 
ceal it from herself — Pentaur, then she went for a 
moment to Nefert’s tent to beg her to take good care 
of Uarda, and finally obeyed the summons of the king, 
who, as we know, fulfilled her utmost hopes. 

As Rameri quitted his sister’s tent he saw the watch 
seize and lead away a little boy ; the child cried bitterly, 
and the prince in a moment recognized the little 
sculptor Scherau, who had betrayed the Regent’s plot 
to him and to Uarda, and whom he had already fancied 
he had seen about the place. The guards had driven 
him away several times from the princess’s tent, but he 
had persisted in returning, and this obstinate waiting in 
the neighborhood had aroused the suspicions of an 
officer; for since the fire a thousand rumors of con- 
spiracies and plots against the king had been flying 
about the camp. Rameri at once freed the little prisoner, 
and heard from him that it was old Hekt who, before 
her death, had sent Kaschta and his daughter to the 
rescue of the king, that he himself had helped to rouse 
the troops, that now he had no home and wished to go 
to Uarda. 

The prince himself led the child to Nefert, and 
begged her to allow him to see Uarda, and to let him 
stay with her servants till he himself returned from his 
father’s tent. 

The leeches had treated Uarda with judgment, for 
under the influence of the bath she recovered her senses; 


UAUDA. 


^05 

when she had been dressed again in fresh garments 
and refreshed by the essences and medicines which 
they gave her to inhale and to drink, she was led back 
into Nefert’s tent, where Mena, w ho had never before 
seen her, was astonished at her peculiar and touching 
beauty. 

“ She is very like my Danaid princess,” he said 
to his wdfe; “ only she is younger and much prettier than 
she.” 

Little Scherau came in to pay his respects to her, 
and she was delighted to see the boy ; still she was sad, 
and however kindly Nefert spoke to her she remained 
in silent reverie, wLile from time to time a large tear 
rolled downi her cheek. 

“You have lost your father !” said Nefert, trying to 
comfort her. “ And I, my mother and brother both in 
one day.” 

“ Kaschta w'as rough but, oh ! so kind,” replied Uarda. 
“ He w^as always so fond of me; he w^as like the fruit 
of the doom palm; its husk is hard and rough, but he 
who know's how to open it finds the sweet pulp within. 
Now he is dead, and my grandfather and grandmother 
are gone before him, and I am like the green leaf that 
I saw floating on the waters when we were crossing the 
sea ; anything so forlorn I never saw, abandoned by all 
it belonged to or had ever loved, the sport of a strange 
element in which nothing resembling itself ever grew or 
ever can grow.” 

Nefert kissed her forehead. “You have friends,” 
she said, “ who will never abandon you.” 

“I know, I know!” said Uarda thoughtfully, “and 
yet I am alone — for the first time really alone. In 
Thebes I have often looked after the wild swans as 


296 


UARDA. 


they passed across the sky; one flies in front, then comes 
the body of the wandering party, and very often, far be- 
hind, a solitary straggler; and even this last one I do 
not call lonely, for he can still see his brethren in front 
of him. But when the hunters have shot down all the 
low-flying loiterers, and the last one has lost sight of the 
flock, and knows that he never again can find them or 
follow them he is indeed to be pitied. I am as unhappy 
as the abandoned bird, for I have lost sight to-day of 
all that I belong to, and I am alone, and can never 
find them again.” 

“You’ will be welcomed into some more noble house 
than that to which you belong by birth,” said Nefert, to 
comfort her. 

Uarda’s eyes flashed, and she said proudly, almost 
defiantly : 

“ My race is that of my mother, who was a daughter 
of no mean house; the reason I turned back this morn- 
ing and went into the smoke and fire again after I had 
escaped once into the open air — what I went back for, 
because I felt it was worth dying for, was my mother’s 
legacy, which I had put away with my holiday dress 
when I followed the wretched Nemu to his tent. I 
threw myself into the jaws of death to save the jewel, 
but certainly not because it is made of gold and precious 
stones — for I do not care to be rich, and I want no 
better fare than a bit of bread and a few dates and a 
cup of water — ^but because it has a name on it in 
strange characters, and because I believe it will serve 
to discover the people from whom my mother was 
carried off; and now I have lost the jewel, and with it 
my identity and my hopes and happiness.” 


UARDA. 297 

Uarda wept aloud; Nefert put her arm around her 
affectionately. 

“ Poor child !” she said, “ was your treasure destroyed 
in the flames ?” 

“No, no,” cried Uarda eagerly. “I snatched it 
out of my chest and held it in my hand when Nebsecht 
took me in his arms, and I still had it in my hand when 
I was lying safe on the ground outside the burning 
house, and Bent-Anat was close to me, and Rameri 
came up. I remember seeing him as if I were in a 
dream, and I revived a little, and I felt the jewel in my 
fingers then.” 

“Then it was dropped on the way to the tent?” 
said Nefert. 

Uarda nodded; little Scherau, who had been crouch- 
ing on the floor beside her, gave Uarda a loving glance, 
dimmed with tears, and quietly slipped out of the tent. 

Time went by in silence; Uarda sat looking at the 
ground, Nefert and Mena held each other’s hands, but 
the thoughts of all three were with the dead. A perfect 
stillness reigned, and the happiness of the reunited 
couple was darkly overshadowed by their sorrow. From 
time to time the silence was broken by a trumpet- blast 
from the royal tent; first when the Asiatic princes were 
introduced into the Council-tent, then when the Danaid 
king departed, and lastly when the Pharaoh preceded 
the conquered princes to the banquet. 

The charioteer remembered how his master had 
restored him to dignity and honor, for the sake of his 
faithful wife; and gratefully pressed her hand. 

Suddenly there was a noise in front of the tent, and 
an officer entered to announce to Mena that the 
Danaid king and his daughter, accompanied by a 

41 


tTAIRDA. 


598 

body-guard, requested to see and spoak with him and 
Nefert. 

The entrance to the tent was thrown wide open. 
Uarda retired modestly into the back-ground, and 
Mena and Nefert went forward hand in hand to meet 
their unexpected guests. 

The Greek prince was an old man, his beard and 
thick hair were grey, but his movements were youth- 
ful and light, though dignified and deliberate. His 
even, well-formed features were deeply furrowed, he 
had large, bright, clear blue eyes, but round his fine 
lips were lines of care. Close to him walked his 
daughter ; her long white robe striped with purple was 
held round her hips by a golden girdle, and her sunny 
yellow hair fell in waving locks over her neck and 
shoulders, while it was confined by a diadem w'hich 
encircled her head; she was of middle height, and 
her motions were measured and calm like her father’s. 
Her brow was narrow, and in one line with her straight 
nose, her rosy mouth was sweet and kind, and beyond 
everything beautiful were the lines of her oval face and 
the turn of her snow-white throat. By their side stood 
the interpreter who translated every word of the con- 
versation on both sides. Behind them came two men 
and two women, who carried gifts for Mena and his 
wife. 

The prince praised Mena^s magnanimity in the 
warmest terms. 

“You have proved to me,” he said, “that the virtues 
of gratitude, of constancy, and of faith are practised 
by the Egyptians ; although your merit certainly appears 
less to me now that I see your wife, for he whfo owns 
the fairest may easily forego any taste for the fair.” 


UARDA. 


299 


Nefert blushed. 

“ Your generosity,” she answered, “does me more 
than justice at your daughter’s expense, and love 
moved my husband to the same injustice, but your 
beautiful daughter must forgive you and me also.” 

Praxilla went towards her and expressed her thanks; 
then she offered her the costly coronet, the golden 
clasps and strings of rare pearls which her women 
carried ; her father begged Mena to accept a coat of 
mail and a shield of fine silver work. The strangers 
were then led into the tent, and were there welcomed 
and entertained with all honor, and offered bread 
and wine. While Mena pledged her father, Praxilla 
related to Nefert, with the help of the interpreter, 
what hours of terror she had lived through after she 
had been taken prisoner by the Egyptians, and was 
brought into the camp with the other spoils of war; 
how an older commander had asserted his claim to 
her, how Mena had given her his hand, had led her to 
his tent, and had treated her like his own daughter. 
Her voice shook with emotion, and even the inter- 
preter was moved as she concluded her story with 
these words : “ How grateful I am to him, you will fully 
understand when I tell you that the man who was to 
have been my husband fell wounded before my eyes 
while defending our camp ; but he has recovered, and 
now only awaits my return for our wedding.” 

“ May the Gods only grant it !” cried the king, 
“for Praxilla is the last child of my house. The 
murderous war robbed me of my four fair sons before 
they had taken wives, my son-in-law was slain by the 
Egyptians at the taking of our camp, and his wife 
and new-born son fell into their hands, and Praxilla is 


300 


UARDA. 


my youngest child, the only one left to me by the 
envious Gods.” 

While he was still speaking, they heard the guards 
call out and a child’s loud cry, and at the same instant 
little Scherau rushed into the tent holding up his 
hand exclaiming. 

“ I have it ! I have found it !” 

Uarda, who had remained behind the curtain 
which screened the sleeping room of the tent — ^but 
who had listened with breathless attention to every 
word of the foreigners, and who had never taken 
her eyes off the fair Praxilla — now came forward, em- 
boldened by her agitation, into the midst of the tent, 
and took the jewel from the child’s hand to show it 
to the Greek king; for while she stood gazing at 
Praxilla it seemed to her that she was looking at her- 
self in a mirror, and the idea had rapidly grown to 
conviction that her mother had been a daughter of 
the Danaids. Her heart beat violently as she went 
up to the king with a modest demeanor, her head 
bent down, but holding her jewel up for him to see. 

The bystanders all gazed in astonishment at the 
veteran chief, for he staggered as she came up to him, 
stretched out his hands as if in terror towards the girl, 
and drew back crying out : 

“ Xanthe, Xanthe ! Is your spirit freed from Hades ? 
Are you come to summon me ?” 

Praxilla looked at her father in alarm, but sud- 
denly she, too, gave a piercing cry, snatched a chain 
from her neck, hurried towards Uarda, and seizing the 
jewel she held, exclaimed : 

“ Here is the other half of the ornament, it be- 
longed to my poor sister Xanthe !” 


UARDA. 


30 i 

The old Greek was a pathetic sight, he struggled 
hard to collect himself, looking with tender delight at 
Uarda, his sinewy hands trembled as he compared 
the two pieces of the necklet ; they matched precisely 
— each represented the wing of an eagle which was 
attached to half an oval covered with an inscription ; 
when they were laid together they formed the com- 
plete figure of a bird with out-spread wings, on whose 
breast the lines exactly matched of the following 
oracular verse — 

“ Alone each is a trifling thing, a woman’s useless toy — 

But with its counterpart behold ! the favorite bird of Zeus.” 

A glance at the inscription convinced the king 
that he held in his hand the very jewel which he had 
put with his own hands round the neck of his daughter 
Xanthe on her marriage-day, and of which the other 
half had been preserved by her mother, from whom it 
had descended to Praxilla. It had originally been 
made for his wife and her twin sister who had died 
young. Before he made any enquiries, or asked for 
any explanations, he took Uarda’s head between his 
hands, and turning her face close to his he gazed at 
her features, as if he were reading a book in which he 
expected to find a memorial of all the blissful hours 
of his youth, and the girl felt no fear; nor did she 
shrink when he pressed his lips to her forehead, for 
she felt that this man’s blood ran in her own veins. 
At last the king signed to the interpreter; Uarda was 
asked to tell all she knew of her mother, and when she 
said that she had come a captive to Thebes with an in- 
fant that had soon after died, that her father had bought 
her and had loved her in spite of her being dumb, the 
prince’s conviction became certainty ; he acknowledged 


302 


VARDA. 


Uairda as his grandchild, and Praxilla clasped her in 
her arms. 

Then he told Mena that it was now twenty years 
since his son-in-law had been killed, and his daughter 
Xanthe, whom Uarda exactly resembled, had been car- 
ried into captivity. Praxilla was then only just born, 
and his wife died of the shock of such terrible news. 
All his enquiries for Xanthe and her child had been 
fruitless, but he now remembered that once, when he 
had offered a large ransom for his daughter if she 
could be found, the Egyptians had enquired whether 
she were dumb, and that he had answered “no.” No 
doubt Xanthe had lost the power of speech through 
grief, terror, and suffering. 

The joy of the king was unspeakable, and Uarda 
was never tired of gazing at his daughter and holding 
her hand. 

Then she turned to the interpreter. 

“ Tell me,” she said. “ How do I say ‘I am so 
very happy ?’ ” 

He tdd her, and she smilingly repeated his words. 
“ Now ‘Uarda will love you with all her heart ?’ ” and 
she said it after him in broken accents that sounded 
so sweet and so heart-felt, that the old man clasped her 
to his breast. 

Tears of emotion stood in Nefert’s eyes, and when 
Uarda flung herself into her arms she said : 

“ The forlorn swan has found its kindred, the float- 
ing leaf has reached the shore, and must be happy 
now!” 

Thus passed an hour of the purest happiness ; at 
last the Greek king prepared to leave, and he wished 
to take Uarda with him ; but Mena begged his permission 


UARDA. 


303 


to communicate all that had occurred to the Pharaoh and 
Bent-Anat, for Uarda was attached to the princess’s train, 
and had been left in his charge, and he dared not trust 
her in any other hands without Bent-Anat’s permission. 
Without waiting for the king’s reply he left the tent, 
hastened to the banqueting tent, and, as we know, Ra- 
meses and the princess had at once attended to his 
summons. 

On the way Mena gave them a vivid description of 
the exciting events that had taken place, and Rameses, 
with a side glance at Bent-Anat, asked Rameri : 

“ Would you be prepared to repair your errors, and 
to win the friendship of the Greek king by being be- 
trothed to his granddaughter ?” 

The prince could not answer a word, but he clasped 
his father’s hand, and kissed it so warmly that Rameses, 
as he drew it away, said : 

“ I really believe that you have stolen a march 
on me, and have been studying diplomacy behind my 
back !” 

Rameses met his noble opponent outside Mena’s 
tent, and was about to offer him his hand, but the Danaid 
chief had sunk on his knees before him as the other 
princes had done. 

Regard me not as a king and a warrior,” he ex- 
claimed, “only as a suppliant father; let us conclude a 
peace, and permit me to take this maiden, my grand- 
child, home with me to my own country.” 

Rameses raised the old man from the ground, gave 
him his hand, and said kindly : 

“ I, can only grant the half of what you ask. I, as 
king of Egypt, am most willing to grant you a faithful 
compact for a sound and lasting peace ; as regards this 


304 


UARDA. 


maiden, you miist treat with my children, first with my 
daughter Bent-Anat, one of whose ladies she is, and 
then with your released prisoner there, who wishes to 
make Uarda his wife.” 

“ I will resign my share in the matter to my brother,” 
said Bent-Anat, “ and I only ask you, maiden, whether 
you are inclined to acknowledge him as your lord and 
master ?” 

Uarda bowed assent, and looked at her grandfather 
with an expression which he understood without any 
interpreter. 

“ I know you well,” he said, turning to Rameri. “We 
stood face to face in the fight, and I took you prisoner 
as you fell stunned by a blow from my sword. You 
are still too rash, but that is a fault which time will 
amend in a youth of your heroic temper. Listen to me 
now, and you too, noble Pharaoh, permit me these few 
words ; let us betroth these two, and may their union 
be the bond of ours, but first grant me for a year to 
take my long-lost child home with me that she may 
rejoice my old heart, and that I may hear from her lips 
the accents of her mother, whom you took from me. 
They are both young ; according to the usages of our 
country, where both men and women ripen later than 
in your country, they are almost too young for the 
solemn tie of marriage. But one thing above all will 
determine you to favor my wishes; this daughter of a 
royal house has grown up amid the humblest surround- 
ings ; here she has no home, no family-ties. The prince 
has wooed her, so to speak, on the highway, but if she 
now comes with me he can enter the palace of kings 
as suitor to a princess, and the marriage feast I will 
provide shall be a right royal one.” 


UARDA. 


305 


“ What you demand is just and wise,” replied Ra- 
meses. “Take your grandchild with you as my son’s 
betrothed bride — my future daughter. Give me your 
hands, my children. The delay will teach you patience, 
for Rameri must remain a full year from to-day in Egypt, 
and it will be to your profit, sweet child, for the obedi- 
ence which he will learn through his training in the 
army will temper the nature of your future husband. 
You, Rameri, shall in a year from to-day — and I think 
you will not forget the date — find at your service a 
ship in the harbor of Pelusium, fitted and manned with 
Phoenicians, to convey you to your wedding.” 

“ So be it !” exclaimed the old man. “ And by Zeus 
who hears me swear — I will not withhold Xanthe’s 
daughter from your son when he comes to claim her !” 

When Rameri returned to the princes' tent he threw 
himself on their necks in turn, and when he found him- 
self alone with their surly old house-steward, he snatched 
his wig from his head, flung it in the air, and then 
coaxingly stroked the worthy officer’s cheeks as he set 
it on his head again. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

Uarda accompanied her grandfather and Praxilla to 
their tent on the farther side of the Nile, but she was 
to return next morning to the Egyptian camp to take 
leave of all her friends, and to provide for her father's 
interment. Nor did she delay attending to the last wishes 
of old Hekt, and Bent-Anat easily persuaded her father, 
when he learnt how greatly he had been indebteri to 
her, to have her embalmed like a lady of rank. 


3o6 


UARDA. 


Before Uarda left the Egyptian camp, Pentaur came 
to entreat her to afford her dying preserver Nebsecht 
the last happiness of seeing her once more; Uarda ac- 
ceded with a blush, and the poet, who had watched all 
night by his friend, went forward to prepare him for her 
visit. 

Nebsecht’s burns and a severe wound on his head 
caused him great suffering; his cheeks glowed with 
fever, and the physicians told Pentaur that he probably 
could not live more than a few hours. 

The poet laid his cool hand on his friend’s brow, 
and spoke to him encouragingly; but Nebsecht smiled 
at his words wdth the peculiar expression of a man 
who’knows that his end is near, and said in alow voice 
and with a visible effort : 

“ A few breaths more and here, and here, will be 
peace.” He laid his hand on his head and on his 
heart. 

‘‘ We all attain to peace,” said Pentaur. “ But per- 
haps only to labor more earnestly and unweariedly in 
the land beyond the grave. If the Gods reward any 
thing it is the honest struggle, the earnest seeking after 
truth ; — if any spirit can be made one with the great 
Soul of the world it will be yours, and if any eye may 
see the Godhead through the veil which here shrouds 
the mystery of His existence yours will have earned the 
privilege.” 

“ I have pushed and pulled,” sighed Nebsecht, “ with 
all my might, and now when I thought I had caught a 
glimpse of the truth the heavy fist of death comes down 
upon me and shuts my eyes. What good will it do 
me to see with the eye of the Divinity or to share in 
his omniscience ? It is not seeing, it is seeking that is 


UARDA. 


307 

delightful — so delightful that I would willingly set my 
life there against another life here for the sake of it.” 

He was silent, for his strength failed, and Pentaur 
begged him to keep quiet, and to occupy his mind in 
recalling all the hours of joy which life had given 
him. 

“ They have been few,” said the leech. When my 
mother kissed me and gave me dates, when I could 
work and observe in peace, when you opened my 
eyes to the beautiful world of poetry — that was good !” 

“And you have soothed the sufferings of many 
men, added Pentaur, “ and never caused pain to any 
one.” 

Nebsecht shook his head. 

“ I drove the old paraschites,” he muttered, “ to 
madness and to death.” 

He was silent for a long time, then he looked up 
eagerly and said : “ But not intentionally — and not in 
vain ! In Syria, at Megiddo I could work undisturbed ; 
now I know what the organ is that thinks. The heart ! 
What is the heart ? A ram’s heart or a man’s heart, 
they serve the same end; they turn the wheel of ani- 
mal life, they both beat quicker in terror or in joy, 
for we feel fear or pleasure just as animals do. But 
Thought, the divine power that flies to the infinite, and 
enables us to form and prove our opinions, has its seat 
here — here in the brain, behind the brow.” 

He paused exhausted and overcome with pain. 
Pentaur thought he was wandering in his fever, and 
offered him a cooling drink while two physicians walked 
round his bed singing litanies; then, as Nebsecht raised 
himself in bed with renewed energy, the poet said to 
him : 


3o8 


UARDA. 


“ The fairest memory of your life must surely be 
that of the sweet child whose face, as you once con- 
fessed to me, first opened your soul to the sense of 
beauty, and whom with your own hands you snatched 
from death at the cost of your own life. You know 
Uarda has found her own relatives and is happy, and 
she is very grateful to her preserver, and would like to 
see him once more before she goes far away with her 
grandfather.” 

The sick man hesitated before he answered softly : 

Let her come — but I will look at her from a dis- 
tance.” 

Pentaur went out and soon returned with Uarda, 
who remained standing with glowing cheeks and tears 
in her eyes at the door of the tent. The leech looked 
at her a long time with an imploring and tender ex- 
pression, then he said : 

“ Accept my thanks — and be happy.” 

The girl would have gone up to him to take his 
hand, but he waved her off with his right hand enve- 
loped in wrappings. 

f* Come no nearer,” he said, “ but stay a moment 
longer. You have tears in your eyes; are they for me 
or only for my pain ?” 

“ For you, good noble man ! my friend and my 
preserver !” said Uarda. “ For you dear, poor Nebsecht!” 

The leech closed his eyes as she spoke these words 
with earnest feeling, but he looked up once more as 
she ceased speaking, and gazed at her with tender 
admiration ; then he said softly : 

“ It is enough — now I can die.” 

Uarda left the tent, Pentaur remained with him 
listening to his hoarse and difficult breathing ; suddenly 


UARDA. 


309 

Nebsecht raised himself, and said ; ‘‘ Farewell, my friend, 
— my journey is beginning, who knows whither ?” 

“ Only not into vacancy, not to end in nothingness !” 
cried Pentaur warmly. 

The leech shook his head. “ I have been some- 
thing," he said, “ and being something I cannot become 
nothing. Nature is a good economist, and utilizes the 
smallest trifle; she will use me too according to her 
need. She brings everything to its end and purpose 
in obedience to some rule and measure, and will so 
deal with me after I am dead ; there is no waste. Each 
thing results in being that which it is its function to 
become; our wish or will is not asked — my head! when 
the pain is in my head I cannot think — if only I could 
prove — could prove — ’’ 

The last words were less and less audible, his 
breath was choked, and in a few seconds Pentaur with 
deep regret closed his eyes. 


Pentaur, as he quitted the tent where the dead 
man lay, met the high-priest Ameni, who had gone to 
seek him by his friend’s bed-side, and they returned 
together to gaze on the dead. Ameni, with much 
emotion, put up a few earnest prayers for the salvation 
of his soul, and then requested Pentaur to follow him 
without delay to his tent. On the way he prepared 
the poet, with the polite delicacy which was peculiar 
to him, for a meeting which might be more painful 
than joyful to him, and must in any case bring him 
many hours of anxiety and agitation. 

The judges in Thebes, who had been compelled 
to sentence the lady Setchem, as the mother of a traitor, 


310 


trAKDA. 


to l)anishment to the mines* had, without any demand 
on her part, granted leave to the noble and most 
respectable matron to go under an escort of guards to 
meet the king on his return into Egypt, in order to 
petition for mercy for herself, but not, as it was ex- 
pressly added — for Paaker; and she had set out, but 
with the secret resolution to obtain the king’s grace 
not for herself but for her son. 

Ameni had already left Thebes for the north when 
this sentence was pronounced, or he would have re- 
versed it by declaring the true origin of Paaker; for 
after he had given up his participation in the Regent’s 
conspiracy, he no longer had any motive for keeping 
old Hekt’s secret. 

Setchem’s journey was lengthened by a storm which 
wrecked the ship in which she was descending the 
Nile, and she did not reach Pelusium till after the 
king. The canal which formed the mouth of the Nile 
close to this fortress and joined the river to the Medi- 
terranean, was so over-crowded with the boats of 
the Regent and his followers, of the ambassadors, 
nobles, citizens, and troops which had met from all 
parts of the country, that the lady’s boat could find 
anchorage only at a great distance from the city, and 
accompanied by her faithful steward she had suc- 
ceeded only a few hours before in speaking to the 
high-priest. 

Setchem was terribly changed ; her eyes, which only 
a few months since had kept an efficient watch ovei 

* Agatharchides, in Diodorus III. 12, says that in many case.s not only 
the criminal but his relations also were condemned to labor in the mines. In 
the convention signed between Rameses and the Cheta king it is expressly 
provided that the deserter restored to Egypt shall go unpunished, that no in- 
jury shall be done “to his house, his wife or his children, nor shall his mother 
be put to death.” 


TJARDA. 


31 ^ 

the wealthy Theban househoM, were now dim and 
weary, and although her figure had not grown thin it 
had lost its dignity and energy, and sefemed inert and 
feeble. Her lips, so ready for a wise or sprightly say- 
ing, were closely shut, and moved only in silent prayer 
or when some friend spoke to her of her unhappy son. 
His deed she well knew was that of a reprobate, and 
she sought no excuse or defence ; her mother’s heart 
forgave it without any. Whenever she thought of him 
— and she thought of him incessantly all through the 
day and through her sleepless nights — her eyes over- 
flowed with tears. 

Her boat had reached Pelusium just as the flames 
were breaking out in the palace; the broad flare of 
light and the cries from the various vessels in the 
harbor brought her on deck. She heard that the 
burning house was the pavilion erected by Ani for the 
king’s residence; Rameses she was told was in the 
utmost danger, and the fire had beyond a doubt been 
laid by traitors. 

As day broke and further news reached her, the 
names of her son and of her sister came to her ear ; 
she asked no questions — she would not hear the truth 
— but she knew it all the same ; as often as the word 
“ traitor” caught her ear in her cabin, to which she 
had retreated, she felt as if some keen pain shot 
through her bewildered brain, and shuddered as if 
from a cold chill. 

All through that day she could neither eat nor 
drink, but lay with closed eyes on her couch, while her 
steward — who had soon learnt what a terrible share 
his former master had taken in the incendiarism, and 
who now gave up his lady’s cause for lost — sought 


3r2 


UARPA. 


every where for the high-priest Ameni; but as he was 
among the persons nearest to the king it was impos- 
sible to see him that day, and it was not till the next 
morning that he was able to speak with him. Ameni 
inspired the anxious and sorrowful old retainer with 
fresh courage, returned with him in his own chariot to 
the harbor, and accompanied him to Setchem’s boat 
to prepare her for the happiness which awaited her 
after her terrible troubles. 

But he came too late, the spirit of the poor lady 
was quite clouded, and she listened to him without 
any interest while he strove to restore her to cgurage 
and to recall her wandering mind. She only inter- 
rupted him over and over again with the questions: 
“ Did he do it ?” or “ Is he alive ?” 

At last Ameni succeeded in persuading her to ac- 
company him in her litter to his tent, where she would 
find her son. Pentaur was wonderfully like her lost 
husband, and the priest, experienced in humanity, 
thought that the sight of him would rouse the dormant 
powers of her mind. When she had arrived at his 
tent, he told her with kind precaution the whole history 
of the exchange of Paaker for Pentaur, and she fol- 
lowed the story with attention but with indifference, 
as if she were hearing of the adventures of others who 
did not concern her. When Ameni enlarged on the 
genius of the poet and on his perfect resemblance to 
his dead father she muttered : 

“ I know — I know. You mean the speaker at the 
Feast of the Valley,” and then although she had been 
told several times that Paaker had been killed, she 
asked again if her son was alive. 

Ameni decided at last to fetch Pentaur himself. 


UARDA. 


313 


When he came back with him, fully prepared to meet 
his heavily-stricken mother, the tent was empty. The 
high-priest’s servants told him that Setchem had per 
suaded the easily-moved old prophet Gagabu to con- 
duct her to the place where the body of Paaker lay, 
Ameni was very much vexed, for he feared that Setchem 
was now lost indeed, and he desired the poet to follow 
him at once. 

The mortal remains of the pioneer had been laid 
in a tent not far from the scene of the fire; his body 
was covered with a cloth, but his pale face, which had 
not been injured in his fall, remained uncovered; by 
his side knelt the unhappy mother. 

She paid no heed to Ameni when he spoke to her, 
and he laid his hand on her shoulder and said as he 
pointed to the body : 

“This was the son of a gardener. You brought 
him up faithfully as if he were your own; but your 
noble husband’s true heir, the son you bore him, is 
Pentaur, to whom the Gods have given not only the 
form and features but the noble qualities of his father. 
The dead man may be forgiven — for the sake of your 
virtues ; but your love is due to this nobler soul — the 
real son of your husband, the poet of Egypt, the pre- 
server of the king’s life.” 

Setchem rose and went up to Pentaur, she smiled at 
him and stroked his face and breast. 

“ It is he,” she said. “ May the Immortals bless 
him !” 

Pentaur would have clasped her in his arms, but 
she pushed him away as if she feared to commit some 
breach of faith, and turning hastily to the bier she said 
softly ; 


42 


itAkbA. 


^14 


Poor Paaker — poor, poor Paaker !’* 

“ Mother, mother, do you not know your f5on ?” cried 
Pentaur deeply moved. 

She turned to him agahi: “ It is his voice,” she said. 
“ It is he.” 

She went up to Pentaur, clung to him, clasped her 
arm around his neck as he bent over her, then kissing 
him fondly — 

“ The Gods will bless you !” she said once more. 

She tore herself from him and threw herself down 
by the body of Paaker, as if she had done him some in- 
justice and robbed him of his rights. 

Thus she remained, speechless and motionless, till 
they carried her back to her boat, there she lay down, 
and refused to take any nourishment; from time to 
time she whispered “ Poor Paaker !” She no longer 
repelled Pentaur, for she did not again recognize him, 
and before he left her she had followed the rough- 
natured son of her adoption to the other world. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

The king had left the camp, and had settled in 
the neighboring ‘city of Rameses ' Tanis, with the 
greater part of his army. The Hebrews, who were 
settled in immense numbers in the province of Goshen, 
and whom Ani had attached to his cause by remitting 
their task-work, were now driven to labor at the 
palaces and fortifications which Rameses had begun to 
build. 

At Tanis, too, the treaty of peace was signed and 
was presented to Rameses inscribed on a silver tablet 


UARDA. 


315 


by Tarthisebii, the representative of the Cheta king-, 
in the name of his lord and master.* 

Pentanr followed the king as soon as he had closed 
his mother’s eyes, and accompanied her body to Helio- 
polis, there to have it embalmed; from thence the mum- 
my was to be sent to Thebes, and solemnly placed in 
the grave of her ancestors. This duty of children to- 
wards their parents, and indeed all care for the dead, 
was regarded as so sacred by the Egyptians, that neither 
Pentaur nor Bent-Anat would have thought of being 
united before it was accomplished. 

On the 2 1 St day of the month Tybi, of the 21st year 
of the reign of Raineses,** the day on which the peace 
was signed, the poet returned to Tanis, sad at heart, for 
the old gardener, whom he had regarded and loved as 
his father, had died before his return home ; the good 
old man had not long survived the false intelligence of 
the death of the poet, whom he had not only loved but 
reverenced as a superior being bestowed upon his house 
as a special grace from the Gods. 

It was not till seven months after the fire at 
Pehisium that Pentaur’s marriage with Bent-Anat was 
solemnized in the palace of the Pharaohs at Thebes; 
but time and the sorrows he had suffered had only 
united their hearts more closely. She felt that though 
he was the stronger she was the giver and the 
helper, and realized with delight that like the sun, 

* This remarkable document is preserved on the huge fragment which re- 
mains of the south wall of the temple of Karnak. The silver tablet on which it 
was engraved is mentioned and described in the 4th line of the treaty. It was 
rectangular, and had a loop at the top to hang it up by. The best translation is* 
by Chabas, in “ Voyage d’un Egyptien.” The hieroglyphic text was published 
by^Burton, Lepsius and Brugseh. A translation of this treaty is found in Egger’s 
“ Etudes sur les traites publics,” p. 243: but this is Inferior to the later ones by 
Chabas. 

** According to the date of the treaty of peace this is the 29th January. 


3i6 


UARBA. 


which when it rises invites a thousand flowers to open 
and unfold, the glow of her presence raised the poet’s 
oppressed soul to fresh life and beauty. They had 
given each other up for lost through strife and suffer- 
ing, and now had found each other again ; each knew 
how precious the other was. To make each other 
happy, and prove their affection, was now the aim of 
their lives, and as they each had proved that they 
prized honor and right-doing above happiness their 
union was a true marriage, ennobling and purifying 
their souls. She could share his deepest thoughts and 
his most difficult undertakings, and if their house were 
filled with children she would know how to give him 
the fullest enjoyment of those small blessings which 
at the same time are the greatest joys of life. 

Pentaur finding himself endowed by the king with 
superabundant wealth, gave up the inheritance of his 
fathers to his brother Horus, who was raised to the 
rank of chief pioneer as a reward for his interposition 
at the battle of Kadesh; Horus replaced the fallen 
cedar-trees which had stood at the door of his house 
by masts of more moderate dimensions. 

The hapless Huni, under whose name Pentaur had 
been transferred to the mines of Sinai, was released 
from the quarries of Chennu, and restored to his chil- 
dren enriched by gifts from the poet. 

The Pharaoh fully recognized the splendid talents 
of his daughter’s husband ; she to his latest days re- 
mained his favorite child, even after he had consoli- 
dated the peace by marrying the daughter of the 
Cheta king, and Pentaur became his most trusted ad- 
viser, and responsible for the weightiest affairs in the 
state. 


UARDA. 


317 


Rameses learned from the papers found in Ani’s 
tent, and from other evidence which was only too 
abundant, that the superior of the House of Seti, and 
with him the greater part of the priesthood, had for a 
long time been making common cause with the traitor; 
in the first instance he determined on the severest, nay 
bloodiest punishment, but he was persuaded by Pen- 
taur and by his son Chamus to assert and support 
the principles of his government by milder and yet 
thorough measures. Rameses desired to be a defender 
of religion — of the religion which could carry con- 
solation into the life of the lowly and over-burdened, 
and give their existence a higher and fuller meaning 
— the religion which to him, as king, appeared the in- 
dispensable means of keeping the grand significance of 
human life ever present to his mind — sacred as the in- 
heritance of his fathers, and useful as the school where 
the people, who needed leading, might learn to follow 
and obey. 

But nevertheless no one, not even the priests, the 
guardians of souls, could be permitted to resist the 
laws of which he was the bulwark, to which he him- 
self was subject, and which enjoined obedience to his 
authority; and before he left Tanis he had given Ameni 
and his followers to understand that he alone was 
master in Egypt. 

The God Seth, who had been honored by the 
Semite races since the time of the Hyksos, and whom 
they called upon under the name of Baal, had from 
the earliest times never been allowed a temple on the 
Nile, as being the God of the stranger; but Rameses — ■ 
in spite of the bold remonstrances of the priestly party 
who called themselves the ‘ true believers ’ — raised a 


uAki:)A. 


318 

magnificent temple to this God in the city of Tanis* to 
supply the religious needs of the immigrant foreigners. 
In the same spirit of toleration he would not allow the 
worship of strange Gods to be interfered with, though on 
the other hand he was jealous in honoring the Egyptian 
Gods with unexampled liberality. He caused temples to 
be erected in most of the great cities of the kingdom, he 
added to the temple of Ptah at Memphis, and erected 
immense colossi** in front of its pylons in memory of 
his deliverance from the fire. In the Necropolis of 
Thebes he had a splendid edifice constructed — which to 
this day delights the beholder by the symmetry of its pro- 
portions*** — in memory of the hour when he escaped 
death as by a miracle ; on its pylon he caused the battle of 
Kadesh to be represented in beautiful pictures in relief, 
and there, as well as on the architrave of the great ban- 
queting-hall, he had the history inscribed of the danger 
he had run when he stood “ alone and no man with him !” 

By his order Pentaur rewrote the song he had sung 
at Pelusium ; it is preserved in three temples, and, in 
fragments, on several papyrus-rolls which can be made 
to complete each other. It was destined to become the 
national epic — the Iliad — of Egypt. 

Pentaur was commissioned to transfer the school of 
the House of Seti to the new votive temple, which was 
called the House of Rameses, and arrange it on a differ- 
ent plan, for the Pharaoh felt that it was requisite to 
form a new order of priests, and to accustom the minis- 
ters of the Gods to subordinate their own designs to the 
laws of the country, and to the decrees of their guardian 

* This temple is frequently mentioned. 

** One of these is still in existence. It lies on the ground among the mint 
of ancient Memphis. 

**'* Known as the Ramesseum. 




3*0 


and ruler, the king. Pentaur was made the superior of 
the new college, and its library, which was called “ the 
hospital for tlie soul,” was without an equal ; in this 
academy, which ^vas the prototype of the later-formed 
museum and library of Alexandria, sages and poets 
grew up whose works endured for thousands of years — 
and fragments of their writings have even come down 
to us. The most famous are the hymns of Anana, 
Pentaur’s favorite disciple, and the tale of the Two 
Brothers, composed by Gagabu, the grandson of the 
old Prophet. 

Ameni did not remain in Thebes. Rameses had 
been informed of the way in which he had turned the 
death of the ram to account, and the use he had made 
of the heart, as he had supposed it, of the sacred 
animal, and he translated him without depriving him 
of his dignity or revenues to Mendes, th^ city of the 
holy rams in the Delta, where, as he observed not 
without satirical meaning, he would be particularly in- 
timate with these sacred beasts; in Mendes Ameni 
exerted great influence, and in spite of many differences 
of opinion which threatened to sever them, he and 
Pentaur remained fast friends to the day of his death. 

In the first court of the House of Rameses there 
stands — now broken across the middle — the wonder of 
the traveller, the grandest colossus in Egypt, made of 
the hardest granite, and exceeding even the well-known 
statue of Memnon in the extent of its base. It repre- 
sents Rameses the Great. Little Scherau, whom Pentaur 
had educated to be a sculptor, executed it, as well as 
many other statues of the great sovereign of Egypt. 

A year after the burning of the pavilion at Pelu- 
sium Rameri sailed to the land of the Danaids, was 


320 


UARDA. 


married to Uarda, and then remained in his wife’s 
native country, where, after the death of her grand- 
father, he ruled over many islands of the Mediterranean 
and became the founder of a great and famous race. 
Uarda’s name was long held in tender remembrance 
by their subjects, for having grown up in misery she 
understood the secret of alleviating sorrow and reliev- 
ing want, and of doing good and giving happiness 
without humiliating those she benefited. 


( 2 ) 


THE END. 





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